T3D and hobby development

#1 TGE and TGEA are still availabe. T3D offers features that will keep serious developers/designers competitive in today's industry. If you're a hobbyist, do you really need T3D?

#2 No I don't, but it was my understanding that both TGE and TGEA will no longer receive bug fixes or other maintenance. While I could probably find and fix most bugs myself if I have the source, I do wonder how long TGE and TGEA will continue to be available, once T3D is out.

#3 TGE is pretty old and it's still available for purchase AND it still has its own private section on the forums where other users can still support and work with it.

TGEA will be available for a long time after T3D comes out. TGEA is still an extremely capable engine, and shouldn't be counted out just because it's not the newest, shiniest tool in the toolbox.

If you're worried about bugs, then T3D won't be the answer either - with all it's new features, you're likely to come across some bugs that will take some time and attention to fix in future versions. I mean, I love GG, but I doubt they can release the engine spotlessly the first time. Few people can. I would posit that TGEA 1.8 has fewer bugs than T3D 1.0 coming out in the next few months.

#4 TGE is only available if you know where to look. Its availability is not advertised at all, and I imagine that TGEA will dissapear from the front page too once T3D is out.

Its not the bugs themselves I am worried about, it is the consistency and supportability of the codebase. If I have to fix bugs myself, and others do the same, then our codebase diverges and the ability to exchange code, and use add-on packs diminishes. Avoiding this is the purpose of having official releases.

Im not bothered whether the engine I use is TGE, TGEA or T3D, I just want it to be affordable, and to know that it is supported.

#5 I'm a Hobby developer and I've purchased Torque 3D, I think it all depends on how serious you are about your hobby people pay thousands for digital cameras if that's their hobby or for mountain bikes, camping gear, horses, etc, hell even a decent gaming pc will come in at about $1000. Or how about an xbox360/ps3 - $300-400 for the unitand $60 a pop for games..buy 10 games and you've spent a $1000!!

Is this really that expensive a hobby? When I look at what I've spent since July 2005:

TGE 1.3 - $100
Upgrade to TGE 1.5.2 - $50
Upgrade to TGEA $145
Upgrade to Torque 3D - $505

Thats $800 spent over 4 years - or $16.66 a month if you work it out that way... personally I think it works out to be bargain, probably not a lot of other hobbies I can fund for that little amount.

It's not going to suit everyone and sure buying into it for $1000 to start with is a big step but that's where TGE and TGEA should be your first steps into this.

#6 Andy,
You have a valid point, unfortunately I have a number of other very expensive hobbies too, and I need to split my cash between them. At the moment the £/$ exchange rate is pretty poor, so I am holding off buying for a while. At last years exchange rates I would probably not have thought twice about buying T3D pro.

Depending on the upgrade path from TGEA to T3D, That might be a valid route for hobby developers. I guess we will have to see how things progress once it is out.

Matt

#7 Vacuums always get filled.

If Garage Games leaves the hobbyist game engine market, someone else will end up filling that niche.

It is a good market to be in if you have the patience for it.... who knows, if GG leaves that market maybe it'll be me that fills the vacuum. :P

#8 I've been close to grumbling about this myself since the price was announced but I keep coming to the conclusion that the pricing for T3D isn't unreasonable, it's just out of my range for the moment. Disappointing to miss out on the "party" and EA discount, but I guess thems the breaks.

Guess I could upgrade to TGEA, but right now my only reason for that would be to get the T3D discount.

I'm right with you on holding off because of the £-$ exchange rate though, I keep checking the rates and hovering over the buy button trying to justify the expense. (Doesn't help that the wife's birthday and our first wedding anniversary are looming...)

That said, I'm horribly disappointed in the T3D Basic license. IMHO it's next to worthless, at best it's a token effort to answer the calls for hobbyist friendly pricing. It'd be better marketed as T3D Artists Edition or World Builders Edition than trying to fob it off as a usable game engine.

#9 Im glad its not just me that thinks this then.

I agree completely about the basic license, without source code and genre-kit compatibility it is a pointless product for developers.

#10 My hobby has also cost me -

TGE 1.4 - $100
Upgrade to TGE 1.5.2 - $50
Upgrade to TGEA $145
Upgrade to Torque 3D - not yet

I also purchased AFX ComboPack for TGE, AFX CoreTech for TGEA.

The problem I have is I was under the understanding that TGEA was 'THE' platform, now we have T3D. Is it now 'THE' platform?

I did not mind the path upwards so far, but I have yet to receive that which I was told I was buying in the degree to which I thought I was getting, or supporting with my purchases. I supported TGEA because it was represented to be the 'direction' to go in, but now that direction has changed.

The only benefit I have seen so far is the community that surrounded TGE and TGEA, and that is why I am afraid of the new pricing. Will that community be there as it was for the previous products, or have they been priced out of the market.

I feel lots of supporters will be unable to bite the bullet and once more upgrade to the next platform, $505.00 is a bit much to spend on another upgrade, once again, even after the discount.

And are we going to see a new platform in a couple of years, for another upgrade cost?

#11

Quote:
And are we going to see a new platform in a couple of years, for another upgrade cost?

Actually, I'd expect so. - at least a payable upgrade -

Technology changes fast, especially over 2-3 years - as I'm sure you're fully aware.

My PC's video card is a 7900GS, laughably out of date these days. It wasn't "top spec" when I got it, but the 8series hadn't been out long enough for the price to come down from "silly money". 2.4ghz dual core was upper-mid-range at the time, but now quad core is.

My Vista32 is obsolete thanks to the forthcoming Windows7 (which suspiciously looks like a fully patched Vista).

My Finepix S8000fd was a replacement for the previous version, bought when it was getting replaced by newer models (so the price dropped to clear stock). In fact if my mother hadn't of swiped that one I probably wouldn't have upgraded at all, though I did want the x18 optical zoom.

As for how the community responds, that remains to be seen. At the end of the day, if I need a resource that I can't make or get from the community as a freebie, then I guess I'll pay someone to create it for me.

edited for typos and general rambling

#12 But with graphics cards, cameras, scuba diving gear ;) etc, as products get out of date and replaced, the replacements come in at the same price the retired products were (often cheaper). This years high quality gaming graphics card costs about the same as last years high quality gaming card cost when it came out, but this years is better.

With the GG licensing, the entry level cost is going up year on year. The entry level cost for a 'supported' and 'useable' (i.e. not TGEA as its not supported, and not T3D basic, as its useless) GG engine is now $1000, a few years ago it was $100.

When GG's next engine comes out in a few years, the pricing will go up again, and the entry bar will be even higher.

This will have the effect of removing large swathes of the community, until only developers who are actually making a living out of it remain.

If GG want $500 for people to upgrade to T3D, they should be charging $100 for new TGEA licenses and $600 for T3D. I bet they would make more money that way than trying to hit new developers for $1000.

#13

Quote:But with graphics cards, cameras, scuba diving gear ;) etc, as products get out of date and replaced, the replacements come in at the same price the retired products were (often cheaper). This years high quality gaming graphics card costs about the same as last years high quality gaming card cost when it came out, but this years is better.

The high-end GFX cards 10 years ago didn't cost nearly as much as they do now... the same goes for some game consoles (Playstation $150(?)... PS2 $199... PS3 $399-$499). On the flip-side, computers use to cost way more than they do now...as did a lot of other things like fax machines, color printers, etc. I really think it's different for different products.

#14

Quote:
...until only developers who are actually making a living out of it remain.

thank you GG for giving us, the serious indie developer, the tools necessary to stay competitive in today's game industry.

...why is no one recognizing this fact but instead focusing on the price of T3D? $1000.00 plus the cost of a 3D modeler (and some are free), advertising, and maybe a server is what it will cost us to begin developing modern, quality games and possibly switch from our 9-5's to doing something we trully love to do...and we're complaining?! Thats...interesting, to say the least.

#15

Quote:thank you GG for giving us, the serious indie developer, the tools necessary to stay competitive in today's game industry.

...why is no one recognizing this fact but instead focusing on the price of T3D?

Because this thread is about hobby development, not indie development

Quote:
and possibly switch from our 9-5's to doing something we trully love to do...and we're complaining?!

You assume that I work a 9-5 job and would rather develop games for a living. I don't, and I wouldn't ;) I develop games as a hobby, and plan to keep it that way.

#16 Speaking as another hobbyist who also has no plans to ever give up his cozy, well paid job to step into the "working conditions" of the game industry...

I thought long and hard about T3D or jumping ship to Unity. I eventually went with T3D because for my project, I thought it would be better (I’m not thrilled by Unity’s networking model and the networked physics in T3D sealed the deal for me). Your mileage may vary. Some mountain bikers like full suspension bikes and some prefer hardtails. Some photographers prefer Nikon and others Canon.


Edit:

Quote:I’m not thrilled by Unity’s networking model

#17

Quote:Looking at the licensing options for T3D, it seems that hobby developers are no longer a target market for GG.

Meaning this neither good nor bad, I would agree in reference to T3D. But then.. in what hobby can a low budget user get the same tech as those willing/able to pay more?

Quote:For $250 I can get a basic license, but without the source code, or 'genre kit' compatibility I am limited to producing mods, and therefore FPS games (not my genre).

Without the source code of any engine, you are technically making mods. I have not seen the limitations of the basic version so I can not comment on fps only. I do believe that over time, the basic version will become more robust.

Quote: The Pro license is $1000, and therefore out of my price range, as I have no plans to ever publish a game.

Yes, well.. until the beta is technically $800.00 for you, but thats still fairly steep. I could tell you to buy TGEA and then upgrade from there to give you both for the price of one, but you would still run into the money problem. Maybe purchase TGEA and us it on your first project. You still have some time before the T3D release (to get the discount) so you could save up. That way, you can build with TGEA while saving up the 505.00. Or.. just stick with TGEA. There are enough code snippets out there that when added, it brings it very close to T3d anyway.

Quote:It seems GG is targeting modders and indie developers, but no longer hobby developers, which is a shame.

while I think GG may not be specifically targeting hobbiest's at this point.. I think they have arranged things in such a way that they are not left out in the cold. TGE is still available.. TGEA 1.8.1 is still available, and the T3D Basic version is along the same price lines.

All the others may not get updates, but if I was GG I wouldn't either. You can't effectively continue work on multiple versions of the same engine and still compete with your staff constantly split.

I do not know what I am.. or where I fall into the mix of Indie vs. Hobbiest. I have the ambitions and abilities of an indie along with the project to fit, but the budget of a hobbiest lol.

#18 @Keith - GG have said they would like to aim for a major upgrade to the Torque 3D engine around this time every year, with minor releases/bugfixes in between, whether they will all be paid upgrades I don't think they have mentioned.

Next years big release might be the step to DirectX-10 or 11, plus some AI, etc. the computer world moves at a fast pace so to keep a competitive game engine is going to require some big updates each year.

@Matthew - Both TGE and TGEA will still be available, GG have mentioned the possibility of TGE being released for free in future as a community supported product and lowering the price of TGEA, although nothing has been agreed or set in stone so far. These are your entry levels to game development with Torque as a hobbiest, a kind of dip your toe in the water.

If you're new to game development you're not going to need all the features that Torque 3D Pro offers not to begin with anyway so your entry level really should be TGE or TGEA still. I doubt those that want to learn 3D Modelling start out by spending $3500 for 3D Studio Max and $700 for Photoshop, you're more likely start with cheaper solutions and upgrade when it becomes more serious.

Same with any hobby most people start out cheap and get a taste for things and then start to invest money on more serious kit when they know it's something they want to stick at.

In general the cost of software is going up and up each year as it becomes more complex and people ask more of it and more features get packed in so the likelihood is in a couple of years time you may see a price structure like:
TGE - Free
TGEA - $100
Torque 3D Pro - $500
Torque 3D Pro Advanced Super Special - $2000

That's the way it goes I'm afraid with software these days - there are some great open source products under development and once they become more feature complete they could well become rivals and help to bring down the costs again but most of them right now haven't quite got the features to compete.

#19 Matthew and other strictly hobbyists:

Quote:
Because this thread is about hobby development, not indie development...
You assume that I work a 9-5 job and would rather develop games for a living. I don't, and I wouldn't ;) I develop games as a hobby, and plan to keep it that way.

So my original question still stands. Why, if you're a hobbyist, are you concerned with the latest and greatest? TGE, maybe even TGEA should suit you just fine. The GG community will continue to work with TGEA and from what I can see, TGE ain't exactly riddled with bugs so the fact that it won't be supported anymore shouldn't present a problem. What's the big deal???

#20 Well, I've scraped together the money for T3D, but now I'm sitting here feeling very hesitant about it... It occurred to me earlier that with the price hike for Torque, we'll surely see a comparable price hike in kits and resources developed by third parties. (perhaps the shock price point on Ubiq Visuals 3D Action Adventure Kit is an indicator of what to expect, if they discussed T3D with GG and followed GG's lead on target market and pricing).

Assuming the change in the target market for T3D results in fewer overall sales and those who do buy will be the ones with slightly deeper pockets, third party developers will potentially have fewer customers to convert into sales, but know they're willing to fork out for the goods. So, "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" hobbyist friendly pricing goes out of the window on third party kits.

Any hobbyist investing in T3D needs to consider the as yet unknown impact on additional costs. What price AFX for T3D? What price the genre kits (that we already know won't work with T3D Basic, so no conversions for genre kit sales there)? They'll, almost without doubt, be significantly higher than the equivalents for TGEA.

Hrm, hrm, do I click buy... or procrastinate some more... or spend the money on my car (show season coming up). Feels too much like Torque is heading out of my range. Sods law, I always turn up to the party late.

@Andy - Have GG definitely said there's a possibility of TGE being released as a free resource? I've seen it suggested on a couple of occasions by members of the community but I don't recall seeing anyone from GG comment on it at all.