Some will know I gave up in frustration with GameGuru's slow progress, I am not going to rant on about this. But it forced me to move to Unity, I had resisted using another engine as I knew it would mean all my efforts would be concentrated on this and I would find it difficult to go backwards thereafter.

To my surprise I find the functionality of Unity so easy to slot into that I will likely be able to continue to create and support assets for both engines easily, though I won't be spending as much time on creating 'out of the box' for GG. Read this a 'lack of functionality in GG and having to use workarounds'.

I had dabbled in UDK several years ago, it is now Unreal engine and a completely different ball game which has incredible graphic power and fidelity. But I just felt that Unity would meet my needs for now so gave it a shot.

I know that GameGuru is many years behind in terms of development but I also know that there has been a lot of wasted work which was abandoned and an ethos of 'good enough' has crept into the product.
The construction kit for example, which had an outing years ago, when more than one coder was working on things never saw the light of day and recently started from scratch as 'the easy building editor'. There are numerous other reasons why GG is not progressing as it should. I get it that Lee is a workhorse and when he is on board and actually working on it he gets a crap load done and kudos for that, but too many other distractions have meant that updates are getting fewer and further between. My point here is that you can't have an attitude of 'good enough' when your product is bought and paid for by folks who believe you will deliver the goods.

Something as simple as default graphic settings out of the box are horrible, where a new user gets their first taste of what to expect. This is a major cause of the whining about GG. When you start a level you are greeted with an over bright and high contrast scene which does your eyes damage. It would be as simple as setting these levels properly to create a better first impression and the whining would stop as GG actually has a pretty powerful graphic engine. This is a simple fix and the least of GG's lack of functionality on first impressions when you consider the lack of LUA functions, fps lag and AI problems, but gives a good idea of what happens when you don't go the extra inch for your product.

I have found C# fairly easy to understand and importing my media is a breeze compared to GG, you can simply export to project folder as fbx with embedded materials or even drag it straight into the editor asset hierarchy and it is simple as that. A lot of Unity's pipeline actually makes it easier than the claim of GG being the 'easy to use' game maker and that needs to be taken on board. Yes you do have to do some coding but you have to do some of that for GG as well if you want to create a decent and unique game so at this point there is no substance to the claim other than being to drag in characters which takes a fair bit more work to set up in Unity, but the serious lack of good working AI in GG makes this a moot point.

I will be happy to discuss details of all this with anyone who cares to, even a dev if you so wish.

Meanwhile I show screenshots and videos below of several of my assets , even some created specifically for GameGuru in Unity (plus some created for the scenes and a couple of free characters from the Unity store to test pathfinding). It took me no longer to set up these levels than if using GG and I set a task of learning at least three new things every day (I am sponge when it comes to study).
Of course it was years of using TGC products which gave me my understanding of what I want to achieve in game design, but it has also been years of modeling and animating before I even approached game design so it all adds up to being easy to get a grip on it.
I sincerely hope GG gets where it is supposed to be in terms of game creation, but I fear it may too long for most and it will be dropped in favour of something else TGC decide is a better option for making their business more financially viable.

Screenshots.




Video.

Sorcerer character created for GG even runs the cloth simulations externally created without using Unity cloth physics.


One of my animated skydomes with particle mesh asteroids.


The Black Rose finally seen in a working environment with buoyancy and foam wake as ship moves.


NavMesh with waypoints and random idle and wander. Also uses random 'look and investigate' markers.

looks great.
i feel the pain , will miss your work on gg and forums.
feel the same been on tgc from 2006, same old excuses
and another rebuild of the same engine, kills all hopes
of an engine that is going to get finished , or just another money
spinner, to keep someone afloat, while other products are are
fully developed. if i had put my time in from 2006 up to now
i probably could have mastered every game engine out there
but unfortunately i didn't in hope or belief of tgc finishing a usable engine
but still as they say there is always another one ready to take your place.

members like yourself have created content for years for the community
and i honestly believe that support from you and other great artist have
kept tgc products x9 x10 game guru ect. going and keeping there products
alive and giving hope to other members of unfinished engines going.
but were are all the people like yourself now, and as we all know members like yourself
are disposable. typical answer from lee would be why not go and try unity or another engine
and come back in a years time, this is i find disrespectful . as for the ebe editor this is a joke when the engine
fails in most core updates needed, perhaps in 6 months it will be complete, then another 3 months on that
save and load for the ebe . mabie it will be free or perhaps a paid for app.
lee had some serious feed back from the community, how does he respond ? no news no progress report.
no broadcast,

Hello there, rolfy, oh great and powerful sorcerer!

Made me happy to see you post, I was afraid we'd have lost you for good. Also grand to hear that you are still dropping assets on us every now and then, as you know I have always benefited greatly from your work!

I'm partially saddened that you've moved on but your results do, of course, speak for themselves. There is a sense of grandeur and warmness to what you have shown here that wasn't as present in your game guru work. I mean yeah, you should not be constrained by an engine like GG and use something more advanced to your advantage. ("advanced to your advantage...thats not awkward at all ) Kinda disappointed that you went with Unity rather than Unreal but hey! Your choice, amirite? (Its not a whole different ball game by the way, if you know your way around good ol' UDK, you'll feel right at home in UE4 sooner rather than later.)


What you then say about GG's default settings is definately true. It is a somewhat powerful engine if tweaked right but out of the box your testgame looks ąţя๏ȼɨ๏µ$.



A few questions to that: How long did it take you to get to a point where you can comfortably make these levels?
Does it feel like work or is it fun? (I know this is very subjective but I'd like to know)
How many loading/unpacking/compiling/building loadingbars do ya have to sit through? How often does it crash?
Do materials still require specular maps to be in a specific channel of the normalmap or can I load them in as individual files?
There is nothing worse than a pouty material editor giving me attitude.



I have the dark feeling that this is a very likely outcome, however...so far we don't know.

Me, I'm working on a small project I've not shown around here. Its a Far Cry'ish shooter game ('ish in that its a far cry from being as good as the original far cry ). Ya know, 2 levels, tropical setting, old school shooty shoot. I'm still amazed by how easy and fast I can set this up in GG. The motivation behind this game is to get a game out in 2016 because I haven't released anything for far too long.
Would such an undertaking not be way more complicated in Unity. Maybe not the level design but programming the camera controls, bullet physics, the whole shooter mechanics shabam, enemy AI (even basic one), default mechanics for opening doors and using levels and whaddayaneed.
In general: Isn't this a freighter load of work if not bought as prefabs from the store?

On a side note: you got a website where I can follow your work?



-Wolf

@devlin.
I really do hope it all falls into place. I too have seen folks being told to come back in six months or so, they wouldn't see much improvement really to be honest.

@wolf.


How does straight away once installed sound ?


No idea about loading bars since I haven't got around to creating menus yet. Loading of even the largest level shown here was pretty fast in a standalone though. So far I haven't crashed at all.


It is honestly refreshing to find all the functionality in Unity I have been asking/whining and ranting for since day one.
For example changes made to assets externally are updated instantly in the editor rather than closing the program down, this is a big time saver for me and takes a lot of frustration out of it.
As for building a level it is as easy as building in GG or any other engine for that matter, TGC have been way behind with this and a simple interface with huge buttons doesn't equate to 'easy to use'. The hierarchy window for entity's is really bad for building where you have to scroll through huge thumbnails to find anything isn't great either with no search function to speak of when you have a lot in a level. There a lot of small features in Unity such as focus on a selected object and the camera zooms to that position you can even move a select object tp camera view which saves time dragging it to position. I could go on at length about features that make building a level less tedious. I have gone on at length about it on these forums but to no avail, it's TGC's product and if they feel it would be 'easy' using their methods then that's their call. But tbh GG is awkward and it doesn't benefit the user at all.

I believe TGC should actually try using other game editors and their own to build so they can compare and see where they going wrong and missing much needed features in their software, I reckon they do more coding of their products than they do researching and this is leading to them missing the point.

As for materials the inspector window for selected object is seen below where you can change the Albedo colour to better suit models that may not quite match perfectly. You can drag and drop textures into the texture slots and change whatever you want instantly with normal and spec power so it is all at hand and no closing the program to see changes (I reckon you are getting it that GG is a pain to me now in this respect where you cant even be sure any changes are exactly what you want till restart). Without seeing changes in editor you can only guess.

Global Illumination real time or baked per object is awesome too with light probes for real time GI and reflections on moving objects. So makes for nice graphics.

As for AI there are several scripts in standard packages and free ones in their store to give you a good start, I am currently using a free system called 'RAIN' for NavMesh generation and waypoints and hardly touched the surface of what this can do. Still to look into melee and combat scripting but will around to it.

Creating third or first person cameras isn't as difficult as you think, again standard and free store scripts to get you started. As for animating character you can create a node tree in animator window for this, it is a little more tricky but not impossibly difficult. The character controller is a little more difficult and really this is where you need to get into some coding but if First Person it's a lot less work. I am getting into it a bit at a time and no shortage of tutorials to find for whatever I am working at any point.

Once I have a combat system set up then this would my template for entire game with some code changes to create variety in character behaviour, I also have coder friends who will be happy to help should I get stuck

Point is I don't feel I could create a worthwhile game now using GG but inspired by another engine.

I will take a look UE4 and see what is going down there.

This is actually the same case with Unreal. You can easily get models and textures into the program. In fact you can even drag a texture on top of an object in Unreal and it would just adapt to the new texture. Shaders included. I should mention that this feature is not an expectation of mine for GG.

I do have a professor at my work that used to work for Ubisoft and currently does indie game projects. He teaches Unreal Engine at my studios. I'm strongly considering sitting in on his classes. I did mention GG to him and he asked far too many questions than we have the answers for. Particles did come up. Unreal has a lot of presets I had no idea you can actually use. For instance 3rd person and first person. I never touched Unity but It seems a lot less intimidating. I've poked around with it a bit. I've been considering opening it up again...

It may be that some of the more seasoned users should try something else. However my point in this thread is to reveal the road path for GG is a mess and want to show what GG should be and not to take users away from it. There is still time to turn things around but if it persists with the path currently on it will surely fail,,,,take it on board TGC.

My point exactly these are average and expected features in any editor but the lack in GG makes it more difficult not easier.

I've already been on my ways out, thats why I've just been dumping all the old stock for the community that I originally converted for myself over the years. Great to see them make their way into the Expansion DLC and wonderful to see people actually using them. Great talented work from the original artists behind those assets. I don't mind continuing to convert things over for the GG community/

To be honest... I havent touched my actual own GG projects in over a year now. It causes me too much stress to do work-arounds. The FPS drops out of no where and the AI is nightmarish at times. I'm consistently frustrated with the lack of control we have with the editor to manipulate objects. The widget is not complete. I can see a lot of potential there still.

One thing I love in Unity is that it "live reads" .blend files from Blender. If you save your .blend file into your asset folder in unity, then whenever you change something on the model you can ctrl+s to save, then switch to Unity and it will live update in Unity's 3D window. I wish gg had something like that.

Thanks for posting about your progress rolfy. I especially enjoyed seeing your Black Rose in action on the high seas .



I think I'm going to have to move on to another engine ... been thinking this for a while ... I've invested a lot of time and effort in GG (as a lot of people have) but it looks like development has been dialled way back in 2016 so doesn't bode well for 2017 being any better. I completely understand TGC needs to keep the lights on and if that means new products, that's what will happen (repeat/upgrade subscription/fees and asset income are the usual business model to keep software products alive when new sales drop off - but appears not in this market segment) ... so also means GG is likely to continue to get much reduced development time and focus. It's a shame but without any communication from TGC to support any other conclusion, there it is. So I'm am not sure what to target now, but you've already made a good case for Unity. Hope I 'm as much as a sponge for info as you are

Cheers.

To be honest I'm close to jumping ship too, gameguru is great, but there's far too many of the fundamentals that are missing, and it doesn't feel like they'll be addressed any time soon.

At the moment I'm trying g to decide between unity or unreal, I'm erring more on the side of unity simply because of how it works so well alongside blender.

But I want to be sure so I'm going to give both a shot , I've just taken advantage of udemy's black Friday and purchased the biggest and most complete courses for each (£12 each, bargain) and I'm going to take my time and go through both, and make a decision then.

I understand the economics of keeping a business running but when they ditch the store, which is the only income after sales, then a big red flag is raised with me.
As you say a lack of communication means we are left in the dark, this is old form with TGC who may feel that their business is not up for discussion, but it is actually bad business practice to keep customers in the dark like they do.
Of course it is all speculation but it is TGC's call to clear it up and they show no inclination to do so. So if it is the same old story yet again then it is the last time for myself and I am sure others feel the same way. I have stuck through thick and thin with their products but no more.

Pretty sure this thread will be locked if not deleted soon, but had my say so don't care either way.

Random question but how well does Unity handle its optimization? Like with the scenes you have created whats your FPS like? Do the distant objects have LOD's?

i am looking at unity and unreal engine myself worth the wait and training i am sure.
i do like the s2hd engine. lots of updates there if you want away from the big named engines and silly price for
the quality of the engine so far.
i love pbr texture pipeline so interesting to see how i get on with that.

(Mod hat off- personal viewpoints represented here)

Rolfy I'm so glad to see your beautiful work in Unity. You've done a lot of amazing things in GG but it's been a longheld fear of mine that exceptional artists as yourself do as much to obfuscate the weaknesses of the engine as they do to demonstrate its strengths. In that regard, it's bitter-sweet that you've moved on. In the immediate term, if GG is to remain viable, it really is best that the weaknesses of the engine be laid bare so that they can be improved properly.

Once I complete this rather large stack of GG-targeted assets sitting on my plate, I too will be looking to... expand my horizons. Unsure at this point to go with Unity or UE but leaning towards UE initially. I am apprehensive about the prospect of entering new waters but also excited. I am eternally thankful for the ways that Classic FPSC and now GG have helped me to grow as an artist and to improve my craft and technique. However, I feel like I'm now reaching a boundary where newer techniques such as PBR materials must be practiced elsewhere. I can only imagine that this transition is similarly rooted and has been fairly liberating for yourself.



I find this relatable not only for engine capabilities and design but also for the gameplay experience the product is meant to create. The types of games which can be made just don't seem all that contemporary or particularly engaging. GG does a lot of things but nothing really well enough to stand out- from an end user perspective. Currently, the platform is tuned to niche retro shooters of jump-scare horror. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself but either would require a level of game-making mastery well above the average in order to attract paying players.

The other disconnect I see is the question of what "easy game-making" means. For me, that means an easy drag-drop experience for the level designer in which everything works well with minimal fiddling about and they are able to create a game that an outsider would want to play. In practice, that would mean more responsibility on content creators to set up the fiddly bits like navigation meshes, snap points, scripting and other "advanced" portions of the "game-ready" pipeline. Unfortunately, I don't feel that we have been given that level of trust. Instead, Lee takes on the burden of trying to make all aspects "easy" which in turn just limits things to the bland state of "good enough" as you mentioned. It also stands in stark contrast that a platform meant to create games easily produces games which, for the end user, are not easy to use due to lack of intuitive player options for graphical settings and keybinding.

Though it seems a bit lost at present, the potential for greatness in GG has always been there... It won't be an easy path... The devs will need to stop being dictated to by the voting board in lieu of less glamorous yet more foundationally important issues and users will need to stop using workarounds and cover-ups which have allowed for this false sense of capability.

All of that said, I do hope that GG will find its way and that enough of us long-timers are around to witness it.

Hi rolfs

Exact same boat, I started last week, wanting to create a game, but ended abruptly , when I found out that I can't do this and can't do that.Started playing around with leadwerks and converting animated files to FBX, considering, 100's and 100's of media available would be a shame to waist.

Finally ended up in unity yesterday, as leadwerks didn't like the converted FBX files, Unity took a liking to the FBX files almost immediately.Relative important to me, as I have moved onto animation and character creation now, I always believed it is important to have a really solid modeling base to work on top off makes things relative easy on the character creation front as animation is simply a whole other subject on it's own to learn.

I honestly I am tired of the whole GG mess, and just want to move on out. But before I do I am actually going to sit down, this week, and plan and make a proper game in Gameguru, Then I will choose either leadwerks, unity or unreal.I actually found leadwerks a lot more simplistic and actually easier engine to move onto next before getting my feet wet with unity or unreal.

But for all intends and purposes I am done with gameguru

This is unfortunately the case for me as well. It is indeed unfortunate.

On the plus side for myself, I have started using Unity. I am really digging the embedded Assets Store that Unity has inside of the engine. Comes with a search engine and all. Reminds me of FPSC's integrated store actually. In many ways FPSC really was ahead of its time, just a bit limited. It is unfortunate GG didn't prove to be its successor (yet?). Maybe one day. However instead of impatiently waiting and constantly running to the forums to rant whenever something doesn't work or I have to do a work around... I'm going to poke at Unity instead. Maybe jump back and forth between the engines.

@Teabone

Let down is the graphics, this one shader fits all approach is killing it for me.To actually list the problems.
No glass shader.
No lifts
No AI navigation apart from ground floor.
No point and spot lights.
No particles.
No geometry or primitive creation.
no indoor levels.
no proper lightmapping, lightmapper is fundamentally broken, lees retort was don't expect world class lightmapper or some thing like it, the fact he is quite happy with the lack luster lightmapper, shaders, graphics, and essential features and general attitude towards it, tells you exactly what you need to know.
Store is no longer linked with TGC profiles, in fact Jason said it will be returned ASAP, that was over two weeks ago.
Store sales have dropped off a cliff, since going private, and unlikely to change.
It's just no and no and no and no simply never ends.......
Some thing I hate and always hated is how the global illumination affects things and you can't turn it off, not ever.
Fog is a mess, it's affecting gun huds, point period it shouldn't but does any way and ends up super bright compared to the rest of the enviroment.
Dynamic entities shadows kills scenery, either by not matching the scenery or by simply not being affected by baked lights or colours.
Stock library AI has animation for climbing ladders, swimming, kicking down doors, melee attack and a have dozen other animations, yet this isn't used at all.

ONE 3rd person character, shooting projectiles, I manged the weekend to port the animation frames of the wizard to one of the other AI, attached a rocket launcher to the guy and animates perfectly, however you can't have guns as there is an issue of sorts with the hud and you will shoot your self, however it isn't perfect rocket launcher animation, with some effort I could probably splice in the better animation frames or add additional frames., the stock AI has about 8000 frames of animation, absolutely ridiculous how little of those animation are being used.

Point is like rolfy you get tired of messing about unable to do any thing worth while. I actually want to make a game, but realistically gameguru isn't going to make the cut, I can't wait another 2 years for that, it simply isn't worth it waiting in total 5 years for some thing that will still end up being mediocre.

We all had expectations of 2 years max, look at where we are at, This has moved over to a rant now, but I guess that is what you get for waiting so long for nothing.I tried again most of today to get some thing worthwhile going graphically I nearly put my keyboard through the screen, thankfully the weather picked up, and switched off.So I hope this weeks planning goes well, and I can get some going.

Yep I agree with all of what you have mentioned. Been bringing up about the same things for years. Here's what in my opinion is holding GG back...

- Widget Tool jumps around too much when zoomed out or in or shifted viewpoint in the edit window
- The Grid has no customization values
- Rotation and Scale have no customization values
- Scaling is not smooth and ends up jumping to undesirable sizes
- The Start Marker is not a volumetic 3D object in the editor which makes it VERY difficult to select when structures are on top of it
- There is absolutely no indication of what you have selected in the editor. No Name above widget, objects do not remain green/red
- Selecting stacked entities is a nightmare (locking mode does not help enough due to issue above)
- No Entity tree to show all placed objects (for selecting and editing without manually locating on map)
- No water graphics controls (was in FPSCx9 and FPSCx10)
- Can't raise or lower water (could in FPSCx9 and FPSCx10)
- No Swimming (was in FPSCx9 and FPSCx10)
- No Menu Editor (was in FPSCx9)
- No Gameplay UI Editor (was in FPSCx9)
- No footfall (footstep) sounds for enemies based off material index
- No bullet holes or impact decals generated based off material index
- Assigning characters a decal material index does not work - they always bleed blood (does in FPSCx9)
- No floor blood decal generation for injured characters or player
- No bullet or impact sounds generated based off material index (was in FPSCx9)
- No day and night cycles as promised
- AI can't navigate slopes or stairs
- AI can't function on multiple floors (could in FPSCx9 and FPSCx10 )
- AI is still not satisfactory
- AI for short range characters needs serious improvements
- AI for long range characters needs serious improvements
- AI halts if there is more than one character using a Waypoint on the map (worked in FPSCx9 or FPSCx10)
- Can't turn off Skybox from within the Editor (for interior design and optimization)
- Can't turn off Terrain from within the Editor (for interior design and optimization)
- No other Light Types in the Editor (spotlight, skylight, etc)
- Limited to only a few Terrain painting types for any given map
- Terrain painting styles is limiting
- Limited to only one vegetation type per map
- No particle system (FPSCx9 had one)
- No visible bullets
- No grenade throwing characters (was in FPSCx9)
- No grenade throwing for Player (was in FPSCx9)
- No Heal or Hurt Zone in Editor (was in FPSCx9)
- Trees need LOD stages
- Better optimization as a whole
- Not enough randomized sounds for explosions, whiz past bullets, shots, impacts and etc)
- Whiz past bullet sound effect sounds like a squeeky toy (sounds ridiculous)
- Lack of shaders FPSCx9 and FPSCx10 had very good ones)
- post processing shaders enabling and disabling via LUA
- Pressing Nums Lock prevents many of the editing short-cut keys to work
- No way to copy and paste groups of selected objects
- Rotating a selected group of titled entities several times can break their alignment (when returned to original degree)
- Undo and Redo don't always work
- No draw mode for entities. Must hold SHIFT and click every time to play an object

Nearly 3 years ago, I kind of expected most of these things to be taken care of so I suggested some features that could follow... not knowing that the original concerns would not be addressed to this date. But then again, I also have no idea how long it would actually take to implement them.

Video from 2014


Within my first 5 minutes of using Unity I have figured out how to make snow identical to Skyrim. By attaching it to the player capsule you can make it follow the player where ever he goes and the flakes would move past him if moving forward or move in front if moving back. You can change up the birth and death rates and the gravity as well for lighter or heavier snow. Same with creating rain and etc. Why did FPSC have a particle system and not GG? Noticed its on the voting board. So I guess its something we can expect down the road.

I just think the funding for the GG part of the business has dried up.in the lat post Lee said he dident have a lot of time to work on GG. Business is business at the end of the day.i allways wander why there in no response to all these posts from the team .

Dave

Hi Errant, yeah, I can understand where you are coming from.

Any one else planning on moving will be same as me and find that old buzz you got the first time you started in FPSC. Because it had it's drawbacks it was acceptable to get creative and find ways of doing things that you didn't expect to see being done in it. Some of us old users from then are still around and still get a kick out of finding ways around the limitations. Some dropped off a long time ago, guy's like Butterfingers who inspired us all with his ingenuity and skills, Locrian and s4real, many modders and artists who kept the product interesting and alive when it was considered by TGC to be complete. I am sure there will be new upcoming users and even some of those around now who stick with it and continue to do this. I now realise it wasn't so much the product I loved as it was the community and that is the greatest loss to me.

I am thinking that FPSC and now GG are not aimed at any kind of development but at younger users who want a start at game dev or simply a way to throw a quick level together to play with friends. Though there appear to be some who believe they can make a quick buck using it to sell games with minimum effort.

TGC were high profile around here at first and had an excited buzz going on which unfortunately has withered and died, if they had at least kept that going even to a lesser degree and users felt that it was still moving forward then everyone would still be on board. But since summer this year we have seen an instant decline in interest from them and that has killed it for me. I guess it really doesn't matter if all they want is to push out a product that does what it says on the tin.
The real problem for me is that they asked for pledges from users who expected more and were promised the world and have been given a small rock floating in space. We started them up with Reloaded which became GameGuru and this allowed them to move the goalposts, now I feel like I have been dumped in favour of a less demanding partner. There is a name for that kind of thing and I no longer feel like I am involved so time to find a new girlfriend I guess.


I started out by looking for an engine I could use to create environmental scenes for clients to use in architectural presentations and got into the whole game design thing. Like Errant I have honed a lot of skills and gained insight and it has been a heck of a journey with TGC but when I have tried to create an actual working game that comes up to my expectations it has always been harder then it should have been and right now with GG an extremely tedious and arduous task.

I sincerely hope it works out and they succeed in their endeavors but I am going to cut my losses and put my money, time and efforts into something that allows me to be creative in the areas that matter to me and not look back in anger.

This is all great,but my one question is still why no answer from the team !!.

Dave

Probably the same reason you never saw a response to all the same posts on the old FPSC forums back then, we have been here before so I wouldn't waste my time trying to work it out if I were you

Like it,think your right .no harm in trying though.might get a answer from the team one day .

Dave

Hey!

I'm in the same boat. I just don't understand why Teabone is still preaching it like this. I mean, he is right but if you browse through the product chat you'll find tons of threads like this one with leviathan post after post exclaiming what is missing, what needs to be done and so forth. This has been going on like this for years. At first we had Lee chiming in and things where slowly accomplished but that degraded rather rapidly. I doubt that GG still rakes in enough cash to be a viable project. Not with the rep its marketing gave it (and later the dire lack of development.)

Everything that came from the devs lately just felt tired and passionless to me.
My girlfriend is chatting with me about cute childrens books on skype as I type this so I just don't have it in me to give you the angry rant right now...again.
I already did so plenty of times and I genouinely feel that this whole thing would be great if everyone just did what I said from the get go. ...the community! I mean the community, of course. If everyone just did what the experienced users said from the get go.

If you scroll down this thread you'll find a set of recent screenshots with an indoor base and an island. Its a basic shooty shoot akin to the old far cry and its... well! I want to hammer a game out after all these years and while its not "Shavra" its certainly something playable. I'll focus on finishing this for dezember, see what its like and then evaluate wether I give TGC 'till February to deliver something or switch to the glorious Unreal Engine 4.

I'm totally with rolfy. The primary reason for me to be here is also the community. It used to be ease of use and speed back in FPSC days but the big engines came so far that they are really accessible now so that becomes an increasingly moot point. Its just that this is a tremendously talented, creative an friendly bunch despite the currently hideous software that united us.

Oh well! The universe is constant change and maybe its time for this to pass. Maybe Lee surprises us with an amazing christmas update, I mean its not impossible...

I do agree that the silence our criticism as paying customers has been met with is insulting. Excuse my simplistic english here, but I was at the local fair and had a few.



-Wolf

Hey wolf, yep the community has been TGC's greatest asset since the beginning. Users like yourself, ertlov and all the others too numerous to mention (you know who you are) have made these products look awesome and perhaps puts you in the category as errant states above where you guy's "obfuscate the weaknesses of the engine as they do to demonstrate its strengths" this lets the dev's sit back and say "why do they complain look at this work done" without taking on board those very users advice to improve the product. Ostrich and sand come to mind.

Without a doubt the best thing TGC has ever created, was this community.

It was a bit sad when GG branched away from the main TGC forums. Made a lot of great connections with a lot of the people there and I'm starting to see them become inactive over time. While GG may not actually be for me... (a question still up in the air) I do intent to stick around the community.

My mention of the missing "features" are in no way meant to diminish the work of the community. Even I understand there are workarounds for nearly all aspects. The problem is we focus 80% of our time on these work-arounds when they easily can be solved if the focus was in the right area by TGC. Saving everyone months to years of development time. Then again the community tends to wave in many directions of what they want worked on first.

I'm totally going to do as most of are you are suggesting. Complete at least one GG game to the best we I can and see where GG is by the time that is done. It would be awesome if TGC focused on the Projects thread more and highlighted them for the news. Amazing work often gets buried here. A monthly highlight would at least keep the news fresh.

Another move forward on the game mechanics, using the sorcerer character again to prove the point. I apologise in advance for the funky cloth sim, first time using Unity cloth. I did have it set to prevent surface penetration but it isn't working full on for me so might need to look further into that. Probably easier to use a couple of simple cloth collision spheres around the torso and hips.

I love TGC, I love gameguru, but damn folks, it's ending up like a teenage pregnant daughter, you are damn proud of her as your daughter but at the same time you just want shake her.......

What is interesting if you look back at this year, what actually went into the engine ? Lee would proudly march into the room, with a list longer then his arm, and read off the items, without realizing he hasn't done any thing remotely significant or ground breaking in the last year, it's been bug fixes, tweaks, and bits and bobs.For the full year, what lee has done in this year, he managed to do in 3 months in previous years.


Either way I have been hard at work and conjuring up the game idea, and I think I have come up with a winning idea, so will see how it goes this week, I also decided to still support the store and new content from time to time, at least it will keep me in the loop all things guru....

Same here and I will continue to show the things GameGuru should be handling by now till they gag me. I still visit these forums regularly hoping to see some progress but it is feeling more and more like morbidly revisiting a train wreck.

Very glad to hear and I'd love to see what you come up with. I'm going to take the same approach.

I totally understand your moves to Unity and Unreal, and I appreciate you sticking with GameGuru for as long as you did. It's fair to say I cannot compete with the features highlighted above, and learning other tools is the smart move if you're up for the challenge. Of course you are always welcome to post back here from time to time, to share what you've created, as I always felt this community was more about game making than any specific product or tool. If GameGuru has helped in some small way to propel you on your journey as a game maker, then I'm happy, and for those I've held back, my sincere regrets for not getting the right technology developed sooner. I cannot put into words my thanks for the contributions you have all made, and GameGuru is a darn sight better as a result.

V1.133 is now in beta, to be released soon, and V1.14 is still being developed to introduce the Easy Building Editor which I hope to release next. If I can leave you with some words of wisdom, if you ever find yourself wanting to create your own games engine from scratch, be prepared to set aside a decade or two

I've been rationing my time on the forums of late, but you can find any new progress updates on a central thread I have created here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216444

Thanks for comenting Lee,great to here from you.Ime sure people will always look in
wherever they go.

Dave

This thread is quite negative which is understandable, it almost makes me regret to have bought two copies including the packs and assets from the store.
So it's good to see a post from Lee about the upcoming updates, if progress is made, it means that all activities devoted to making a game in GG is not in vain.
That was my fear yesterday when reading this topic, so Lee, thanks for your reply.

I think you underestimate yourself Lee, you are perfectly capable, no one expects GG to produce right out of the box and mostly it is the level designers Artistic talents to make any engines capabilities work in the way I have shown above when it comes to creating a game.

You appear to be struggling more with 'easy game creator' than you should be and in doing so you set yourself a formidable challenge, of course I understand what your trying to do but as you can see it is the more adept users who are impatient with this. But you should also remember the early days where you would post up teaser videos etc with a lot of these features promised which kept those very users around and throwing their cash at the project. You can't turn round now and say you can't compete. What you showed us way back proves you can.

I can only build with what is provided and the smaller things mentioned are the ones that matter when it comes to 'ease of use'. Your engine is certainly able to produce the above you just haven't made it accessible enough yet, you need to get rid of that voting board and select a few seasoned users to listen to so you move forward, these are the people who will make your product look it's best and improve it's reputation. You need to stop trying to do it all yourself and accept their help and advice.

Dust yourself down man and get back in the saddle, there are people who believe in you, don't let them down.

I have to agree here ... There is nothing else like GameGuru for ease of use .. Its a unique piece of software in its own right .
The fact that users want more means its a winner !! and I know Lee can code faster than superman can take a leak
But I also run my own little business and realise that GG isn't your only commitment .. ( unavoidable situations arise ) so for me I will probably be here till I get dragged off ...

For those who want to try other things then good luck ... I have dabbled myself but just prefer GG ..

My apologizes Lee for being so brash. Its always such a relief to hear from you. Even if you were to just say hi.

I would also like to back up rolfy's points around the comparison of GG to these other mega tools. My expectations for GG were never that high and still aren't to this day. The things I listed above is all I ever needed or desired from GG. You have been able to do remarkable things in the such a short amount of time... I think we all just get so used to how rapid you can whip tings out, that we always expect that same level of output of "features" all the time.

When things get quiet around here that's when everyone starts to panic. We all just assume development has stopped or slowed down. Also, if TGC is at any type of financial situation that may be holding things back.. if that's ever the case... maybe it can be hinted to us so we can help out. Perhaps paying for voted features as "co-producers" or an open crowd sourced donation drive. If GG is able to reach its goal and tackle all of the issues we have brought up, it will be successful. Because we'll be pumping out amazing games with it and not fear showing what engine it was created with.

It couldn't be said better. How many threads in the past 3 or 4 months (more?) have been started regarding that? A lot of speculation going around, and I am guilty of it myself, although for the most part jokingly. I find it odd, though, that Lee responded to this thread and not any of those. All anybody was asking for was some kind of update. In Lee's response to this thread, he referred to his update thread, which I'm sure everyone here is aware of, which hasn't been updated in almost two weeks. The silence on his part has literally been deafening! I do not wish to be negative, although that's inevitable; I will be with GG until it's development ends. I also use UE4 anyway, and it does everything I want it to (with the exception of Blueprint, lol; it is not logical to me, I'd rather code). That doesn't diminish my respect or hopes for GG though. Keep on keepin' on, Lee and TGC!

He has said it before and will likely say it again.I got annoyed with his post, and quite angry, but I didn't want the first say.

Don't tell me the things I have listed can't be competed with, that is where I normally see red......

I agree - there's a big difference between making a game engine and making a game, and while I'm not sure how much game-making experience the TGC team have, I'd say not enough.
In theory, the voting board allows game devs to drive the development of GameGuru, but the fact that votes from novices such as myself count as much as votes from people with many years experience ruined whatever advantages the voting board may have had.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think that if half a dozen or so of the more experienced users from the FPSC days were involved from the beginning, we would have a very different (and superior) product. Assuming that TGC are still invested in GameGuru and aren't about to shut up shop and head for the Caribbean, it might be an idea to scrap the voting board and grab some of the experienced users before they jump ship.

I agree. The items nearing the top of the list as of late are just depressing. Sounds more like the kinds of requests coming from people whom have never used a game development tool before. People that don't understand the fundamental needs and foundations behind a game. I guess more so... its people that just want to make a game and are voting based on whats missing from their game. Rather than people that want to help support an engine be the best it can be for everyone. Considering most of the items are scriptable "features" .... I'm just going to assume these are primarily coming from Youth. After all that's who GG started marketing to early on during the FPSC Reloaded transition to GG.

Also, whoever is operating the Game-Guru website can you remove "Quests" from the list since we already have "Quest Giver" on there?

I totally agree with Rolfy and others here. While Lee can't compete with the top game engines that have been developed by huge teams for years, he has pretty much proven in the past that he can get darned close.

The biggest issue isn't the work itself, but the priority of work. The voting idea is a nice idea in theory, but with such a widespread user base it's not practical in actual implementation. Many users don't understand how to prioritize work and will vote for something they want that might not always be what the majority needs.

What we need is a priority list and road map of things that are needed to bring the engine up to a point where it does compete with other engines. Ease of use is a great hook for the inexperienced, but ease of use is no good to anyone if there's nothing to apply that ease of use to.

Personally I would suggest a compromise, prepare a road map based on key core components, with priority to the most needed, this list will be worked on without deviation all the time, then have the voting board for additional features, with each of these features being a long term project worked on alongside core components, a bit here and a bit there. That way the engine itself will improve at a constant rate, and we will get the occasional bonus feature from the board every six to nine months.

And above all, keep us informed. A weekly post saying "this month we're working on xyz" only takes a few minutes, it doesn't even need to be detailed, the simple fact that you're regularly popping on to say hi would calm a majority of us down, because right now it feels like we're being left in the dark and hung out to dry.

I think if these changes most of us would be happy.

Actually I think Lee is referring to fact that he and GG as a whole cannot compete with those features that Unity / Unreal has at the moment ... Not the fact he is unable to implement them ... I think we all know he can ..

That looks realy goodwith the flowing cloth.

Dave

The A.I looks real good
you are progressing quick.
is this a basic A.I script or your custom script.
cant wait to make time now getting started on the basics.
working a lot as of late. the video is excellent.
keep them coming . why lee just did not build on x10
was a mystery to me x10 had so much potential even though
vista was a joke, he could have ported most of the features into GG.
along with dx11.

Wonderful Rolfy. My programming skills are not very great. So I dont think i'd fair very well in C++ or C# environments.

I think because X10 was Vista specific it may have been tied up in some MS Licencing ... There were reasons X10 wasn't worth continuing when vista got dropped which is also the reason X10 cannot be made Open source like FPS Creator .... I think there was a lot more ties around the X10 coding than we are aware of which was fine at the time..

I've been taking a Unity course the last couple of days, this course starts with C# coding before even letting you near anything exciting in the editor, which is a great way of learning it, this way you do the scariest bit of learning first and get over your fear. It's working for me so far.

Here's my "interpretation" of the course wok so far:
(not quite Rolfy's masterpiece, but I'm just learning the coding side of it at the moment)
http://swgrp.co.uk/Games/Number%20Wizard/
(click the full screen button so the text lines up properly, also internet exploder doesn't support the webgl system it uses)

This recent thread i think relates quite well:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216727

FPSCx10 works great on Windows 7, 8 and 10. I recall seeing people in the forums begging for "FPSC Reloaded" to continue support for Windows XP. XP is what held FPSCx10 back since at the time of development the majority of the TGC community was still in XP. So here we are in Directx9 at 32 bit again with GG.

What's interesting though is FPSCx9 started taking on all of the amazing features FPSCx10 had later on while still running on Directx9. I remember the conversation about developing FPSCX9 forward, since it was starting to succeed FPSCx10. Though the vote went forward by the community to start yet another FPSC version, FPSC Reloaded => GG.

I guess thats why i always rant. Always wanting that further developed FPS Creator engine.