Hi All,

As part of my daily circuit around Emails, LiveAgent, Facebook, YouTube and these forums, I also visit the Steam discussion and reviews to ensure everyone's questions are answered. In the last few days, I've had a small avalanche of negative reviews and no positive ones. This post is to ask if anyone has yet to make a review of GameGuru on Steam, as now would be a good time to write one.

Here is the link to the reviews page: http://steamcommunity.com/app/266310/reviews/?p=1&browsefilter=mostrecent
And advice on how to make a Steam review: http://store.steampowered.com/reviews/

I think we all agree GameGuru has a long way to go in terms of visual, performance and core features to bring it into 2017. We have some good negative reviews that highlight the work required, and I look forward to reversing them with time (and code). It's also very real that reviews on Steam matter and good reviews help fund the development (if a new Steam user gets a fair and balanced view of the product). That said, if you read the last four negative reviews and feel it's not a balanced representation of the current state of the product, and have not yet reviewed, it would make me very happy if you could redress the balance and put your own considered opinion on there. That said, I can completely understand where all four negative reviewers are coming from, and my hope is to address their concerns in 2017.

As Granada's wife said, "Make It Better ". I could not agree more!

The latest bad reviews all seem to be one liners with no explanation. Nobody really takes much notice of that kind of review because it's usually only trolls and kiddies.

I was not a popular chap last year when I made that assumption Over Christmas, I gave it some thought and decided every negative review was indeed my responsibility (in some way), even if it's simply describing a product that turns out not to meet expectations. Rest assured I am on the case in 2017 to get the development right, I just need some help getting the fair and balanced reviews to the top so new users don't get put off before they start

You can't honestly take those seriously Lee common m8 0.2, 0.4 hours and they write a review? pfft they are having a laugh. If i was to rewrite my review it wouldn't change that much tbh, i still think we have the best community out of all the engines and i still think that you still can develop some pretty good projects i have quite a few as you know.
The one thing that i Keep mentioning as it stands out for me and from what i read from new users is the Player character itself. " i wanna make a space game" or "i wanna make a racing game" bla bla i know its old hat but addressing this 1 thing would in my opinion make GG more appealing to any new user. Even if these things don't work 100% straight off at least it will take the edge off GG just being a FPS, and i think after that things would develop very quickly knowing our community

I later noticed this topic...

I think, if we want to improve reviews of games created by GG, need to look at the little things, like https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217102and remapping keys (WSAD to others) in standalone exe...

I've just persuaded a friend (who has been messing about with GameGuru over at my house for a few weeks now) to finally buy GameGuru, he cant review at the moment because it requires him to use the product form his steam account for 5 minutes first, but once he goes back home and installs it he will write a review.

Yay! Let him know there's a Steam Reviewer Badge for him if he wants one

Actually i told a white lie, he didn't buy it, i bought it for him and told him to review it, but he was thinking about buying it anyway :p

I avoid writting a review because i find too negative points.
It is perhaps best to stay cool, forget Steam for some time and stay focused on making GG better.
This will result in better reviews in the long term.

Unlike most mortals, I don't have the luxury of focusing on one thing only. The CEO of a small company wears many hats, a large one is coding for sure, but without a shop front, there would be nothing at all, not even hats!

I understand.
But many users are already helping with scripts or graphics, you are not alone.
Give users a more flexible engine with complete Api ( camera ,physics, raycast etc ...) and they will make game templates for any gameplay instead of using work arounds that doesn't look great because GG is hard coded for FPS mainly.

I just wanted to say to stay more relax and forget Steam reviews for some time, as new annoucements comes on Steam and new features appears, reviews will get better in the long term.

Remember and note that your review is just your experience. Qualify your statements with that—no one needs to hear "and I've heard lots of other people have the same problem." That just sounds like you're manufacturing those "other people" to bolster your opinion. Make it clear that this is what happened to you, and that other people's experiences may vary, even if yours was particularly positive. Remember that there's another side to your story. Positive reviews almost never get challenged, but they're also most often ignored by future readers. Negative reviews draw the most attention, and while most people are smart enough to look over all reviews and omit the ones that are strange, particularly useless, or irrelevant to them, even negative reviews can be useful if you address why you think your experience unfolded the way it did, by putting yourself on the other side of the issue. Sometimes there's no excuse for poor treatment, bad service or a horrific experience, but if you can show a little understanding, it goes a long way towards validating your review as an honest one—even if a future reader still decides to steer clear of GameGuru.

Good time for some of the people that have had GG for some time and have not yet reviewded it to come to the front .

Dave

I already have some understanding not writting a review and i don't want to make a positive review that does not reflect what i really think, but you can do it.

With 2,583 hours in GameGuru perhaps its time I did my review ...

To be honest there are only a few "Proper" steam reviews up there ..
It should give the ups and the downs and decide based on that .
Look at this for example ...A bad review with only 0.2 hrs on record....


Then when answered explaining that's more development etc and asking his opinion over what he thought was good we get ..


Serously !! You cannot write an honest review based on that .... Steam should not allow reviews until you have at least 10 hours on record at least that way you know the user does actually have a little knowledge about the product to make a fair Judgement ..

Must be approaching 3000 hours so about time I reviewed

Only 7000 hours to go and I'll be an expert.

Cheers.

I wrote my review based on my experience, and I am quite happy with GG, yes there are things that could be better I totally understand that, but I honestly like GG its a WIP and I love seeing it grow and get better.
I did not see a point in leaving a bad review I am not a developer i just love being creative and when i wrote my review i took in consideration that

1. i like the idea of it
2. small development team (small business - total commitment)
3.strong community (lots of help)
4. good price
5. purchased and used previous products (familiarity)
6. saw the bigger picture of what this could be

i like most people look at the negative reviews first they did not sway my mind they helped me to purchase i made a uniformed decision based on the responses to the negative reviews.

Maybe i should rewrite mine now i have 2,110.5 hours on record push it back up to the top of the list *goes off to have a look on whether i can*

eek how come my steam hours do not reflect my total hours, am i supposed to launch through steam?

Your steam played time will not increase unless you load gameguru through steam, it doesn't know you've loaded it if you don't run steam when you do.

I very rarely run gameguru through steam, i don't like using steam unless i really have to, that's why it only shows 325 hours when in reality it should be in the multiple thousands by now.

oh poo lol nevermind i did have an issue with steam guard at one point i think that is why i run from my desktop.

thanks for explaining Belidos

I had some commercial game idea , nothing big only a decent enought game. I expected less hard coded stuff, physics, particles ,a more flexible engine. This is different expectations from yours.

Really not trying to be dicky here but your buddies review will be no more valid than others by your own reckoning, simply because it is positive won't make it any more valid if only a short time use is listed before posting.
As you say your friend has been using longer than even purchase date and several others here are saying they don't always use through Steam so not a proper amount of recorded time there, could be any number of reasons why you shouldn't assume these negative reviews to be off base.Simply writing these off as trolling is commercial suicide. Particularly when it is often asserted in advertising and by the Dev that you can create a game in minutes and then they find it really isn't possible to create something unique and their own in that time, which is the real hook, 'sandbox game' is used often as a negative response in Steam reviews.

The new Kickstarter project is more what it claims to be and nothing more so is more honest from a purchasers point of view that is the problem here, to be honest at this time GameGuru doesn't live up to the hype. Users around here get it and believe it will get there (one day) but it is not cutting it with new purchasers and they have every right to feel it doesn't unless it is clearly stated that it is still in development then you have the problem of selling it as completed and informing after the fact. Consumers don't like this at all whatever the product.

Just do so, and positive reviews will coming.

As fanboy I would say you, ignore them as I do; but there is another reality here, and as CEO you can't ignore it, fun are needed to support develop and positive reviews might help, unfortunatelly living in a planet where people need to know what others want, to decide what they want. Well that's the rules of the game, so let's play, why not.

Personally I prefer try myself, so if I need gives some feedback, I can talk from my own experience, nor the others one. But this is just my opinion.

Meantime you release and release, and release, improvements and new features, and positives ones will coming along.

3com

Ok so I put up a short review and included a link in it to the LEM video so people can see what is possible.

Huh what? You've quoted two different posts from two different people there rolfy, the "You can't honestly take those seriously..." part has nothing to do with me at all, I never said anything of the sort, that's from Honkey Boy, the second part (the bit about my mate) was me though. I think you need to slow down your reading, cos you're mixing posts up here lol.

My apologies, reading and not paying enough attention.
But the sentiment does remain the same as you cannot ignore negative reviews based on time used, not with a claim of minutes to create.
Still you did say something fairly similar and that's what got me confused as it seems to be a theme around here with short reviews and time used that assumes trolling


As I say it is all fine ignoring reviews but you cant write these off as simply trolling. No amount of fanboy (count myself as one) attempts at negating negative reviews will make a difference to new users.

Totally not even close to being the same :p

I was just stating the fact that most people skip reading one line reviews (ie "this is rubbish" and nothing else), simply because they look like trolling or kids throwing a tantrum.

I never said he should ignore them, what I meant was he shouldn't get bent out of shape about them, just deal with them as he has been (ie asking them why etc as he is already doing).

Well, as a fairly new user with about 200 hours, i've written my personal review on steam.

Truly I don't care what Lee does with it nor do I really care about reviews negative or otherwise as it isn't my product, just stating the obvious which is that I don't claim to have any idea what a potential purchaser thinks when looking at them. I just think it would be suicidal for any company to ignore them, one liners or not. I don't think Lee is getting bent out of shape but he does want to address it though, which is obvious by his coming round here touting for positive reviews which I reckon could be one liners and still make him happy enough.

Maybe your right and there is absolutely a big difference in comments about 'trolls and kiddies' and honkeyboy's "You can't honestly take those seriously ' again I really don't care anymore but both statements are common when Lee comes around here touting for users to post positive ones. I will simply shut up from here in and leave y'all to it since you seem to have it all figured out

Just one last thing, my own frustration and the reason I won't be jumping over to Steam to balance out the bad reviews is that I personally don't have much positive to say myself by now as it is getting thin with no progress report whatsoever and asking me for a review isn't cutting it anymore. This keeps it pretty much on topic and I personally am beginning to agree with many of those trolls. So if I post a one liner negative review with several thousand hours use will it be valid and will my concerns then be addressed..or will it just be lip service and trying to balance the negative with a positive promise which will be a long time coming in reality?

Those negative reviews are just trolls after all so don't let it get to you.

Most of GG users know what areas needs work in GG, so there is no need for a negative review to remember it or say you was expecting too much, and Lee is aware of it.


Until things really improve i no more have a commercial game idea with GG, but i gave a positive review stating that GG is aimed to users that don't expect too much.

GG being out of Early Access is a bit of a problem for those with high expectations. Since there is still quite a lot of obvious work to be done and the users are generally presented with these issues quite early in development. Since the engine sells itself as being a tool to build something incredibly quickly and publishing it.

Things people tend to find out early on:

- The 3rd person aspects suggest its possible to already throw in any character and assign them any weapon. This is not the case.
- There are entities that seem to cause preference issues when populated in great numbers. for example animated trees.
- Dying in water (as you know, currently)
- Character Creator doesn't seem to work properly with the characters it generates (AI issues?)
- no easy way to build interiors (as you know, currently)
- AI doesn't work on various floors
- Waypoint AI issues
- No menu editor
- A struggle to important custom media (not an issue for me but i get emailed a lot about this one)

Game Guru tries to be more than what it originally set out to be, when it was FPSC-Reloaded. A more improved FPS engine. Unfortunately this has resulted in a lot of loose, incomplete features that people are starting to become dependent on, for their game concepts.

Everything is expected to just work out of the box, if your are out of early access and especially if you are carrying an "easy game maker" tagline. I feel if anyone confronts anything that doesnt work as they expect they will automatically head for the review page and downvote. So its best to just tackle those issues. There is no better way to fix negative comments, by fixing the issues that caused them to write those reviews. Its also incredibly important not to argue with the costumers. As other potential buyers might see that and be turned down by the professionalism in the community.

I think a lot of the bad reviews have some valid points behind them. I mean people don't generally pay money just to troll products. That is very rare (does indeed happen). While most of them can be quite insensitive, since GG has a major draw for younger users due to the tagline "the easy game maker" and the ability to be fairly anonymous on Steam. They are the customers after all and are generally bringing up legitimate issues they feel they are faced with when using the software. Some are new users, some are veterans.

Veterans want GG to be FPSCx9's successor which it isn't quite yet. While it has a lot of features that FPSCx9 doesn't have, it still is missing a lot of capabilities that FPSCx9 had in its later years. Swimming, multi-floor AI, interior building, various water editing tools, particles, an array of post-processing shaders, variety of working entity shaders, lip syned talking characters, easy to script FPI commands... (explained this more in detail in a previous thread). GG currently doesn't have everything that made FPSCx9 good that we expected for FPSC-Reloaded. It is getting there, that's for sure, but i think for a lot of the veterans of FPSCx9 have simply just lost patience and moved on. Considering during FPSC-Reloaded's development Unity and Unreal both went free, unexpectedly at the same time. This made Game-Guru instantly become a competitor since it had a price tag associated and the other two did not. So it could be assumed that there was a bit of expectation that GG would be better than both of these editors.

I think its important to give a reason why people should buy Game Guru instead of using Unity or Unreal. I personally like to think about the why before the what. It should be mentioned clearly that you can sell your games made with Game Guru without having to pay any royalties. You also have access to a MASSIVE database of free assets.

New users, rarely use the forums here. Because they are from the Steam community and stick within the Steam forums. Where they are unable to see all the incredible work that can be done in GG at present. Also they may not receive the same level of help from the community. So they are often left with their problems for themselves to deal with alone. The forums here at times can be dead at certain hours, or questions get buried. A Wiki and a live chat would solve this problem as I have mentioned before. Wiki or something of the sort is incredibly important as GG needs proper documentation of tutorials and how to use each and every GG LUA command.

These new users also come expecting to be able to make all kinds of games without scripting, due to the description of the product, website, videos and the tagline. But you will find out very soon after poking around in GG for a short time that scripting is a must, in order to create any uniqueness to your game. Also there doesn't seem to be any obvious support for multi-levels within the engine itself? I actually personally havent tested this out with GG, but I know I have plans for it. A lot of users struggle with this part, so they end up just dubbing GG a level editor.

I don't consider myself a fanboy but I am a fan. However, I still am myself a customer. I personally haven't made a review yet, as I'm waiting till I can actually make the game i intent to with GG, so I can express that in a positive review. So until then I'm holding off so I can really detail why GG is a good buy if you are serious about making a game with a level of ease. I may consider doing a positive review just using the pro vs con theme like others have and edit it as GG improves. Id love to just say its fantastic and great! but I have to also be honest with myself, who happens to be one of those veteran users, I mention here earlier.

For the people that use the product review page on Steam to bash the develop or insult anyone behind it, i wouldnt take it personally. We are living in a scary new era where people feel empowered to say the worst things they possibly can to people via the internet. I do blame the Youtube community for that. But again, leaving them with no justifiable reason to put a thumbs down is the way to go. So best to just focus on the task list.

I haven't written a Steam review, either, Teabone, but I consider myself a "fanboy", lol, and I think you are, too! You've been around here and have made so many contributions I don't think you can honestly deny it. However, the difference that lies between us and the casual Steam user, I believe, is in the marketing of this product. It advertised a lot of things that it didn't deliver right off, and, 3 years later, still hasn't. Imagine all the abilities of FPSC on a huge map!? I think that's what we all expected when we voted for the rewrite from ground up. I think most of us still have faith that it will happen, but if anyone is trying to build a business on this, they will be disappointed. That isn't TGC's fault, though, except, perhaps, their marketing team. I have the same problem with the mega global corporation I work for. Marketers are not in touch with reality. They don't have to be, though, sadly, they just sell shit. Job done. Death to the marketers!


EDIT: I responded before I read your entire post. Yes, what a different world we live in.

What's up with asking us for positive reviews when there's been a near black out of progress over the past 3 months? It's like covering up rust with paint. The rust is still there and it'll show through the paint eventually.

Negative reviews consisting of 1 liners still count, troll or not. I won't contribute a false positive review on a piece of software which is still in early access.

A big thanks to those who've posted a review on Steam, it is very much appreciated! I also completely understand those who don't want to, and I agree with the reasons stated. This exercise was not about ignoring product development, so please don't make this about that, it was just one of the many small but important hats I have to wear around here. For my coding hat exercises, you can find out more in my progress thread: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217071

If it was designed with new grounds as a solid minimum game engine (particles, camera, physics, entity system), then anyone could customize as they want or use FPS template that should only be built on top of the 3D engine.
The issue is there is no solid base 3D engine implementation, and too much hard coded, it's good when you want to sell quickly a software, but this is bad in the long term.


Royalties is a false problem because you are not sure to do more than 3000$ per quarter and you only pay what exceeds 300$ per quarter. If you are successfull giving 5% to Epic is not a lot and it's a win win situation. But you must learn Blueprints, there is some templates but you will always want to make custom things about AI or gameplay.
I think GameGuru place is for beginners, non coders and 3D artists that really don't want to code, more than for experienced people.
But GG needs a complete Api to let experienced users make new game templates instead of waiting for Lee to do and to let people customize anything in the more simple possible way.


You can deny when some software you paid is outdated or cluncky in many areas like graphics, no particles, no navmesh, no raycast, no camera smoothing and control , no physics Api... you understand this is very disappointed for people coming from other 3D engines or that have tested other small and bigger 3D engines (even Quake 1 3D engine open source got particles).
Negative reviews is also a good indicator on the state of your software, what it advertise to be and what it really is.

I would create a new post in your progress thread, every time you have something to say....Lee. When you were doing so in a previous thread, users here had no real idea if anything was new in it or not; because it didn't show as updated. Updating the first post does not update the thread in the list.

Yup, i did mention that a couple of times, it was a little hard to keep up with the news because it wasn't showing as new.

I don't want to make a new post for every day of progress reported, it would be a mess and splashed all over the forum. Best to keep my progress in chronological order and allows anyone who had not been around for a few days to get a snapshot of what progress has been done. Perhaps I will add a post to the thread each time I post progress so you know when progress has been reported, such as a screenshot or some extra detail that does not sit well in the summary post at the top.

That's what he/they meant, not a new thread but a new post in the thread (editing the first post only doesn't show as "unread" again).

This is my opinion, but i think Trello is something that helps a lot to manage a planning and releases, in a simple and clear way.

I wasn't saying that.
I pointed Trello as a great tool for personnal planning, you just write down what you are working on, next planned features, possible features, and non planned ones like ideas. It can help for personnal software or game management, forcing you to writte down things and keep clear ideas on where you are heading.

I realised I misread so I deleted it ...
Not in time by the look of it

I think i'll withhold my review until gameguru is in a state that could be considered by anyone to be fit for a "recommendation"
If this is never so, I'll probably be the last person to throw my thumbs down on the pile long after gameguru is dead and buried.

I know some have said that asking for reviews may sound a bit desperate but here Is my conclusion ...
All of a sudden after Lee's request we have a load of positives added .. What this says to me is many who are happy with GG don't bother to write reviews ... But It seems to be human instinct is that if your not happy then the first thing you do is write a bad one .. So do we look at that as in most are happy but don't bother to write reviews ... But if your not you go in all guns blazing ?

Because that's certainly the way its looking ..

I've said this hundreds of times in the past on gaming forums for the various mmo's i've played, complaints will generally be more visible than thanks because those that are happy are using the product rather than talking about it, whereas if you have an issue with something complaining is almost the first thing you do.

.....That's what I said Lee. A new post in your thread.....

Am I missing something?

A 3D engine is Devs software they create and sell and advertise. It can stay with missing features , some outdated ones , it's again Devs buziness and responsability.

If Devs is happy with his software like that, than it's also all right, he can just ignore people that are not happy that have higher expectations.
Lee has many possibilities :
1) ignore people with higher expactations because GG is aimed for non coders and beginners first
2) make some improvments
3) make a rebranded new Game maker
4) sell game templates for mainstream engines.
5) create a new 3D shop with 3D art for any 3D engine
5) switch to something totally new

There is lot of possibilities, only Devs know what software they want to do and what they want to work on, or not.

I think asking features and bad reviews is the way software get improved.
For example Unity is developped by lot of engeeners, but users must cry it loud and repeat many times or get enought attention before some particular asked features comes in.
And sometimes asking does not work also lol
For example the terrain system is very outdated for Unity as a mainstream engine, but they still don't have made a new one after years of users requests lol

no, but because steam doesnt have a "meh" option, i'd rather not review it until my I can reflect on the whole of my gameguru usage and its updates and improvements over time as a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down"

I love Game Guru, I love the team, I love the community here. I also realize that it will take a few more years (at least a couple!) to have most of what I want in it. I just have a hard time putting the thoughts into words for Steam. I want to write a review that will make the reader feel the need to rush to the dentist upon reading it!