Peronally, i'm curious if i'm still using GG when GGM is available.

OK. Well, I am a big fan of Lee and TGC. I have been using their products since FPS Creator. I admire how Lee just keeps ploughing on with the development of GameGuru. It is clear to see it has been and continues to be a long hard slog. I will continue to have great respect for that dedication. But I do not agree with what has happened with GameGuru Max.

I do not have a link to prove it but I do remember hearing Lee once say that GameGuru was, "what will become the ultimate game engine" (it might have been "game making tool" or something but I distinctly remember "the ultimate". And it is because of such promises that I check out the forums every few months or so, to see whether we are any closer. GameGuru was billed as TGC's future magnum opus; I mean that was the impression they gave. But now they seem to have derailed those of us who "came along with them on the journey" (to again paraphrase Mr Bamber) by redirecting all the potential into a different app. I think that's strange but fine. I just feel that existing GameGuru users deserve, at the very least, a hefty discount above what non-GameGuru users get for pre-ordering.

It seems like GameGuru Max is more advanced than GameGuru so how can GameGuru ever be the "ultimate game engine"?

Also, I recall a discussion on the forum. Lee was considering releasing a character pack of 100 characters. Later he said the general feeling was that it would be better to have an improved character creator. So, where is this improved character creator that we have been waiting for all these months? Oh, there it is; in GameGuru Max.

I notice GameGuru Max has VR support. This is something Rick Vanner said GameGuru would have. I remember it from a YouTube video.

I can afford the new app. It's just the principle of the matter. I will probably sacrifice my principles and pre-order the app simply because we have all waited long enough for GameGuru to take a significant step forward but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Fair comment lord Julian its only what is true. However I think if tgc had marketed this as an add on pack they would of got away with it totally....
Called it high spec add on pack which would of kept the moaning low ends away and carried on with gg and thenthe rest would of blught the high spec upgrade. Gg would still be the ultimate amd option to ugrade to all the bells and whistles. Wkuld of saved lee headaches falling. On swords and still sold the pack at that price

Julian, I just want to commend you for the calm and rational way you have voiced your opinions, unlike so many others who have gone in all guns blazing. Your responses speak for much of the longer-standing members of the community and - to me at least - are perfectly valid. If I had been a gold pledger, I'd feel pretty peeved at the timing of the Game Guru Max announcement. Note I said timing, not the announcement itself.

Had TGC developed Game Guru classic up to a stable and workable point, then begun developing Max, I think there'd be an awful lot less bitterness.

AE

Thank you, Avenging Eagle. I appreciate it.

When I found projectv3 on github, I just assumed that this was going to be merged into the main gameguru branch at some point. I don't feel betrayed, as I understand from a programming point of view that you simply cant always modify or rework code, sometimes u need to rewrite code from scratch, I dont feel cheated of money as I would be happy to pay a subscription fee yearly if it meant a better product each year.

You know, all this hooha could have probably been avoided quite easily.

Existing users pay an upgrade fee. Perhaps the gold pledger's could get a better discount here. Not fussed myself, but some would appreciate it.
New users get the discount pre-order as set at present.

Existing users would have been mollified and new users would expect nothing else anyway. I think most of us would have paid early in this case to get a look at it as it progresses.

Personally, I hope to see a demo of at least the new CC maker before I commit. I want to see something that makes me think, yes I would find that really useful!

Maybe Gold pledgers could ask for one small feature to be added, just a thought. i'm happy with things as they are

Dave

I don't normally get riled about these little things. I am not getting my 'big girl panties' in a twist or whatever. I know we all have much more pressing matters to worry about. Of course, I know that... But sometimes these little things are important.

As Gold pledger I don't care about the price GGX or fact that it is going to be another engine. I will pay full price for it if GGX will be more complete engine. For right now I will wait until September. Because I want to see how much of an improvement will graphic rendering will be. That's only interesting feature I see for GGX. I hope Lee really focus getting the graphic to a much higher level. I can understand other people disappointment cause I to thought GGC would be better than it is now. I'm accepting the fact that GGX is the new engine GGC may get support for two more years with bug fixes and that's it. My disappointment is not about money. It's about having a more complete game engine that is easy to use and has a more complete third person Gameplay mechanics. My world sandbox engine comes close to that ideal third person mechanics. But for right I think the best thing we all can do is let work on GGX in peace and wait to see how it will turn out in it's final build in September. It's the best thing we all can do at this point. Also I think Lee needs to add a lock thread that explains game guru support will continue for bug fixes and whatever other support it will get. So we don't other people on the forum telling other members what's going on. Also another lock thread that explain about game guru max. because this thread is doing nothing but repeating itself.

also it would be nice to have monthly update on the progress of game guru max in a lock thread.

My own opinion..
Personally I think turning GG into a version of Max would just have been unworkable and probably easier to start from the ground up anyway. There would probably be more to undo than add to get it there. That's not to say I don't want the GG updates still. I have a game to finish

How many times though have I said " Hell I would pay extra for this or that " So now I can get a fresh up to date 64 bit engine rather than Lee continually trying to MacGyver GG for much less than I would have been willing to pay.

Either way you look at it its our pledges that got us this far so I still think my money was well spent and a decent price tag in September to help development on both engines. Don't look back look forward. You cant change the past but you can improve what happens now

I hope GGM will be modular so modded content from users could be added in. I also hope GGM is made with the current codebase with nothing tying it to 'classic' if it's going to hold GGM back, even if there is no compatibility between GGC and GGM.

@DVader : Waiting until September is a perfectly sound strategy, especially if the difference between $25 and $50 is negligible to you. You get to see the product evolve and break the preconception that it's just a reskin of the current engine, and then decide if it has the tools you need. In the meantime, we will continue supporting Classic for as long as there's a community using it.

@MadLad Designs : No plans for additional 'modularity functionality' for MAX over Classic, so what you learned with GameGuru is still applicable to making games in MAX. Of course, we've moved a lot of code out of hard-coded binary and into LUA scripts, but I have not seen a huge take-up of this flexibility, just some shining stars out there. We will also be improving the importing of assets and associating their animations better (for a given value of better), but I won't know for sure until I've written it. Alas, we are aiming for full backwards compatibility in the sense you can load your old FPM levels in MAX, but you cannot save a level in MAX and expect it to load in Classic.

"but I have not seen a huge take-up of this flexibility, just some shining stars out there."
Thanks Lee, for the compliment!

"but you cannot save a level in MAX and expect it to load in Classic. "
Perfect. That's awesome-- no irony. Because if you could, I don't
think it would be saying much for MAX. I will get MAX simply for the
64 bit and promised copy and paste, and spawning entities @ lua
on the fly. Maybe VR will be something to jiggle with? Map sizes??
Hopefully .OBJ +.FBX models. Maybe CC DLC's?

I'm not hoping for anything to slow up-- I'm not suggesting we suddenly
get slouchy here, on the contrary-- but I wanna see what MAX has become
by 2022!

With GG classic we hoping for a game engine that was to be 'game making for everyone', what we have is a First Person Shooter that can go beyond the mindless mechanics of the typical zombie shooter - if you are fluent in Lua. So at best it is 'game making for coders'.

Personally I don't feel betrayed at all, just disappointed that we keep just trying to make the engine look better, but don't do much to make it a game Dev tool for everyone.

Stability and ability to produce an exe that will run on a reasonable amount of systems and have more than two levels that work as expected is surely what is more important than cool looking graphics.

Don't care about classic now myself since it won't be what I was hoping for anyway. That said it as a fun ride, and I learnt heaps from the process, so happy with that.

I have doubts my project will work acceptably on end-users machines anyway, so will just wait and see if it is feasible to continue with it in MAX.

Don't flog a dead horse (sorry couldn't help that) just put all your effort into MAX.

I would happily pay a sub for MAX if it had the goal of actually becoming 'game making for everyone'.

OldFlak.....

I think you just made an other bold claim here. Why would you continue support Classic potentially "forever"?
Instead I think you should announce that Classic continue to get support (bug fixes and improvements only no new features) for an other 12 months until 2021 September or something and then it is over, it should give enough time to everyone to finish their classic project or port their project over to Max and put an end to this.


I honestly don't understand how can anyone expect free updates forever for $20 or even $50 not to mention $5. Just ignore them.
However for gold pledgers who paid $100 you did actually offered "free lifetime upgrade" with the gold pledge.

To calm everyone down, I think you should offer a free Max key to gold pledgers only and officially put an end to the lifetime of GameGuru and include a disclaimer, Max is no longer subject of any original promises made for GameGuru Classic and Reloaded so this is the end of the story and Lee and Max can no longer be questioned for any claims ever made for GameGuru or Reloaded otherwise it is never going to end.

Maybe you also want to consider to have a community manager / marketing manager type of person on board who keep in touch with the community and inform people what to expect and when without any bold claim from the lead developer and CEO. Facts only.

This is coming in next release.
This is coming sometime in the future.
We have a discussion about this but no decision yet.

No need to say anything else and as I mentioned an official, public roadmap to suppport such claims could also help in my opinion to actually show what is under development now, what is planned and what is considered. On Trello for example people could also comment and vote on the roadmap. No need to make any promises for taking votes seriously but it is also a feature to use on Trello.

Thanks.

Ok, i just want to say i agree with lordjulian, i also remember Lee said
::: He was considering releasing a character pack of 100 characters. Later he said the general feeling was that it would be better to have an improved character creator ::::

I also agree with DVader of the upgrade fees.

Also i am not a computer boffin here but, why does GGMax have to work only win10, is it just because of the 64bit , if so then i want to ask , if i go to my my computer and right click on properties then i see this,

and i using win7, so it mean my win7 can run and support 64bit programs
So does that not mean that windows 7 would have been able to support and run Max,
if it is not true please explain why.
If so why not let Max work on win 7 and 10, I am sure a lot of users here would have loved to have that choice. Lee if it is possible then please,... you have till September to make a lot of people happy
i for one do not now have the founds to upgrade to win 10 and for GGmax, so i Guess i will probably just slide out of the picture, witch i would hate to do but its reality.

If this was possible , then a user that upgrade to win7 64 bit Max could pay less than a user that upgrade to win10 64bit max something like that.

I had been a gold pledger, do I expect a free upgrade/update to max. No, I already preordered it.
I think it’s just fair, that after a few years they release a new product and we have to pay for it, if we want to use it.

GG is not perfect, but the latest version is pretty stable and yes u can create games with it.
First person and 3rd person (with limitations)

I would fix the bugs and add some “missing promised features” and then finish the lifecycle of GG, not in 1 year.... before the release of GG Max.
Then u have the full manpower to focus on one product. Which would be beneficial for GGMax.
When I saw the release date of GGMax, I just thought wow, I’m not an engine developer. But 6 months is not very much time for a complete new 64Bit engine. But I hope that u can keep that date and the release Vers. will be more bug free than the first GG versions

I'm REALLY excited about the updated character creator and feel like it has the potential to make this engine a huge success. One thing I'd sure like to see is some ability to change NPC character expressions, even if it's just the ability to toggle between calm and some sort of angry/sad/upset face. It's going to make a major difference in the quality of dialogue scenes, but it would also be really useful during combat or other action scenes when it just looks weird for a NPC to have the same frozen expression throughout. If it complicates things too much for the developers, maybe we could just have the ability to cycle between different jpegs, pngs or even animated gifs on the face, so we could provide our own changing expressions.

(Apologies if this isn't the best thread for a feature request, but I couldn't find a better place. I realize there may be reasons why this feature could simply never happen in GameGuru MAX, but I thought it was worth asking.)

O and yes another promise from Lee,
in a thread were someone was asking how to change the foot step sounds
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/208622#msg2487141
Lee said this:
what exactly did you promise here?

To be honest if Lee gave all the features he has promise to the users, and finish them of completely, i dont think some people would even wary about having GameguruMax.

edited:


how do everyone think Lee is going to pull this off, lets be honest, its impossible to release GGMAx perfectly and still keep his promise to give the users the features he has promise in the past for GG classic,
One of the two is going to get all the attention, now witch one do you guys think its gone be?

I think we already know..
Promises is promises
lets hope for a miracle.

Pcs

No, it's because GameGuru MAX will support Windows Mixed Reality. So, this Windows 10 limitation is due to the VR capabilities that will be a part of GameGuru MAX, not due to it being 64-bit. Having said that, if you don't use Windows Mixed Reality, then there should be no reason that you cannot use GameGuru MAX in Windows 7 or 8, provided it's 64-bit.

I realize that there have be a ton of posts in various places about GameGuru MAX, but it would do everyone good to take the time to read through them all before asking questions. A lot of these questions (like why GGMAX is "only" Win10 compatible, will GameGuru Classic continue to get updates and new features, etc.) have be responded to many times in various places. I'd take some time, go through the Product Chat section of the forum (all threads pertaining to GameGuru MAX), and see what's already been asked and answered.

@PCS
Lee's official response on Windows 10 only.
-----------------------------------------------------------
We had to go to Windows 10 because Windows Mixed Reality sets this as the minimum specification for VR, and because it allows MAX to focus a little more on fewer platforms to reflect the small team available to support it. All about user expectations (as much as possible) this time around. Remember you still have Classic for 32-bit and other Windows platforms!
----------------------------------------------------------
Kind of also means that things could still be added that will not work in Windows 7 in the future whether its 64bit or not
Aiming for 10 only avoids any confusion or future hassles right off the bat so its a risky purchase if you have Windows 7.

Ok , im out for now with questions
Lets see what happens. i will wait patiently.

I am (dare I say it) assuming that Preben and/or another developer will be supporting Lee in bringing GG Classic up-to-date, having said that Lee can work extremely fast.

Back in the day, I did become a Gold pledger. I also donated more to TGC for FPSC-R project. At that time I was being presumptuous; assuming that FPSC will still be supported. I had spent a year and may hours a day creating RPGmod. I had finished it and because it was too difficult to use I was then going to streamline it thinking I had plenty of time. Low and behold it was not too long after that I was continuing work on it that BOOM! FPSC was discontinued completely and also at the same time I was having a meltdown, that stemmed from PSD that I have later found I had all along since Vietnam. During that time I became livid both in emotion and look. In fact, I almost died in October of 2016. However, I regained my health both physically and mentally according to the grace of Jesus Christ my Redeemer and Lord.

So, could I have felt that Lee betrayed me, personally? Yes, I could have, however, I did not feel betrayed as s4real and Nomad Soul with a great mod called Black Ice Mod for FPSC. I then had issues with trying to reinstall DBPro and FPSC. FPSC would not install and I had issues with a couple of plugins with DBP. OK, so I decided to start using FPSC-R and found that it changed to Game Guru. I've been at it ever since and am getting more and more comfortable with the lua language.

And now, there will be GGMax. No, I do not feel that Lee has betrayed me. On the contrary, he is keeping Game Guru and calling it GG Classic which I'm glad for that. I pre-ordered only because I wanted TGC to have some extra injection of money to help with them getting started. Yes, I still believe in Lee and TGC.

I think you can use the analogy of GGC and GGM with 4G and 5G. LifeWire explains it this way: A new type of mobile network wouldn’t be new if it wasn’t, in some way, fundamentally different than existing ones.

GGM is fundamentally different from GGC.

@GubbyBlips : I had always hoped by moving power to the scripting, I could crack on with the core internal stuff, but I do get a lot of calls for me to write logic that do things you could easily achieve in LUA. And then I remember, not everyone has been coding for 30 years It's a tricky one, but I think the answer is 'a little of both', but for now the aim is on the core stuff, and if it can be done in script, defer to that option. Maybe once core stuff gets boring, I can spend my limitless time on writing lovely logic for games, probably do it as part of an actual game making project, that sounds like fun. Alas, I am chained to the engine room right now, no time to make games for fun

@OldFlak : How about "Game Making For Those Who Want A Simple FPS Game In A Few Minutes" The danger of any tagline is that it can be interpretted so many ways. I think that is why solicitors where invented to expand on a concept so thoroughly that there is literally no room (or patience) to ellude any extra meaning from the proposal. I could certainly communicate in contract form, but it would not be the greatest of reads (for a given value of greatest). Maybe all future software should simply be called 'Made in XXXX' where XXXX is the year of manufacture, and then leave all expectation blank. I don't think I would sell many copies, but at least the expectation would be satisified.

@Zigi : I think 'bold claim' is my middle name, and as the punishment continues to roll in on this personality defect continues (mainly from Steam), I don't think it will change me. Too long in the tooth for radical shifts like that. The best I can do is what I do. It's my passion, and I do it because I love it. if that's not enough, there is literally nothing more I can do. I also have a spark of integrity, and if I said I would do a thing in my professional capacity, I am determined to see to it that it happens. By Classic community, I don't mean just one screaming angry voice, rather a significant group who wants to see Classic prevail on the merits we outlined in 2015. If in time, that group naturally moves to MAX, then we can focus that remaining resource to MAX and accelerate a little quicker with a single product, but we've all got to get along together and if a portion of our community wishes to continue with Classic then that is what I will push for. Sure, this is not typical business practise, and I may be outvoted by the higher-ups (for perfectly legitimate business reasons), but if you bought a product from me, no matter if it's 5 years at $20 dollars, if I said it would do a thing when you bought it, and it turned out it didn't, that does not sit well with me. Sure, every day I spend on Classic is one day less on MAX, but this is an evolution, and at the end of the day we are one community, and Classic is part of the fabric of that community in so many ways.

I have noticed how "Free Lifetime Update" turned into "Free Lifetime Upgrade" over the course of recent conversations I did a little scounting around and the original promise was "updates", as you see in my early blog from 2015 here (http://fpscreloaded.blogspot.com/2015/02/launch-day-with-new-name.html?m=0) with the quote "GameGuru is now our main game making project here at The Game Creators and we have lots of developments planned for 2015 and beyond - you will get lifetime updates for Free ". It's a small transposition, but pretty clear in the standard industry definition, with update being 'fix something you broke' and upgrade being 'here is some new stuff we made, do you want to buy it'. Are you expecting us to deliver free features forever (and bear in mind we've done so for the last five years) for your $100 purchase? Can you site 'any' other product out there offering that kind of value for money?

You make some great suggestions about appointing what I would call a 'filter' for things we have not done yet, such as might be viewed in a roadmap. It might be dry stuff, but at least you will get delivery on what was officially decreed. If you feel it would be better to have me pull back a tier, and hire someone to validate and sanction all future communication, let me have your thoughts on this. It would certainly mean I can focus on development instead of typing hours of text in forum chat, and of course diverting resource from hiring coders to hiring communication officers, but if that's what the community want to see, I can make it happen. I can also pretty much confirm my team will approve the decision, as they really don't want me out here whittering on and making bold claims all over to place. I'll leave that one open for debate - would be interesting which evil you choose. Idle chatter you cannot hang your hat on, or solid facts that read like political broadcasts.

@PCS : Yep, I am sticking with my opinion I made at the time. Since then, I have created the new character creator and it was the right decision. The new Character Creator is pretty awesome, and you can make hundreds of characters, instead of a limited selection. If we did a new character DLC, it would be selling body parts, not complete characters. With the new system for MAX, you can make characters in seconds, no fuss. We chose Windows 10 because Microsoft only support Windows Mixed Reality on this OS or above, and this is a basic feature of the new product. That is not to say it will not RUN on Windows 7, it's just that we have decided to support the latest OS only for our latest product, it keeps the overhead of developing for it lower by the time we get to 2025 If you are not interested in VR, we will have a demo out around September and you can try it out. If it works on your particular Windows 7 setup, I think you can take the risk of buying MAX and using it perfectly fine. It's just TGC won't fix any Windows Vista/7/etc related issues is all. These days it pays to be very specific about what is being promised in 2020! Can you send me your link to my email at lee@thegamecreators.com, I am keeping a record of Classic promise links, and who felt their importance, so I know where I am, thanks!

@MooKai : I agree that the ideal is that all my team and resources focused on a single product creates a better result (for that product), but a good chunk of the community still wants Classic to fulfill it's potential under the original terms and it has been made very clear there will be war if this is not done. My hope is that MAX presents an appealing alternative in 2020 and beyond, but until there is virtually no-one left in the Classic camp, my aim is to keep working on Classic, fixing bugs, adding promised functions and slowly, patiently and steadfastly converting the nay-sayers over to the fact we are not 'betrayers'. There will still be a place for Classic, supporting 32-bit systems, running Windows 7 and the like, using our 2015 engine (well, let's call it our legacy DBPro 2010 engine) and delivering a pain-free capability to knock up an FPS game in a few minutes. It's also good for business we have two product tiers, the lower price $20 Classic and the upper price $50 MAX, as it provides more marketting opportunties, and if we want to be taken seriously out there (once we have a kick ass engine) it's always good to have a product for every purse. Sounds mercenary I know, but you don't get to code as a hobby for thirty years without developing a second sense for the entrepreneurial.

@MindiFlyth : Thanks for your comments on the new Character Creator, I have a video scheduled for next week to show more details on what we have so far. We learned much from the last one, for example, using a color wheel to change skin pigment is insane, and never looks real. This time, we STARTED with what artists would have done, and built it up from there. For those who say this 'should have been done in the first place' does not understand the process of invention, it's rarely spontanious and genius, it's gradual, plodding, prone to error (and occasional explosive), fraught with risk and has an even chance of becoming a complete failure. If you ask Edison's chief engineer, he 'would have' testified that it's not 50/50, more like 999/1 Changing character expressions can be done right now (and in MAX) but you then need skills in 3D modelling and animation, and then skills in scripting to get those animations to your characters face. There are no plans to 'automate' this process in MAX (just for the avoidance of doubt and subsequent liability), but we are looking to completely decouple the animation data from the script, so you can get someone to animate some facial expressions and then map those to the character in some way. Your ideas have merit though and once we get past September, and the community agree we have a solid enough foundation, and Classic users are happy with their updates by then, we 'might' be able to engineer a way to augment the 'head' model with some prefixed emotions. Right now we have heads from three different artists, and the only thing they have in common is the mouth and eyelid rig (as far as I know) but perhaps there is a way in the future to override the standard animations with some expressive eyebrows? Joke, I think expressing emotion for characters is super cool, and when the time comes, I think we can do a good job. Not modern day AAA good, but Half Life 2 good.

@Bored of the Rings : I'm not as fast as I used to be Yes indeed, through the kind beneficence of my management team, I think I can keep Preben busy through to September, and let's face it, it will take both of us to cover the requirements of continued support for Classic and creating a whole new rendering/engine and terrain system for MAX. Of course the UI is a huge part of MAX, but you've already seen that now so it kind of 'does not count'. I can say it was Preben that made the new UI possible, leave it to me and you will still be lumbered with the old BCG based nastiness of old.

@Flatlander : Thanks for your 'not betrayed' vote I am sure you have had 'many' reasons to give me more colorful labels than that over your long tenure with this community, and it's great to have you around to continue posting your trademark no-nonsense responses to everyday life here in our game making bubble. I am not sure I deserve the belief you have conveyed upon me, I try to be as transparent as time allows, but meeting the expectations of others is perhaps the hardest professional challenge I have to face. Coding is a doddle, been doing it since I was a nipper, but delivering software that is all things to all people, now that's a toughy! I'll take it one day at a time, doing what I enjoy, and trying to be the best I can be, and if that does not cut it, then so be it. At least I made a few people chuckle along the way

I don't feel betrayed, i do feel annoyed and quite angry, but not because it's a new product, i'm actually looking forward to it and can't wait for the testing to commence.

It was the lead up to it that annoyed me, the absolute silence about anything, then the leak because someone had pasted it to github (seems suspicious that, almost as if someone was trying to get our attention and trick us into calming down on the premise that something big was coming for GameGuru). Then the vague hints about VR and multiplayer, that although didn't say it outright, seemed to hint that it was coming for GameGuru.

Then there was that totally obnoxious reply that was hovering the thin line that is NDA breach from a certain person i will not name, who berated the community and told us it wasn't for GameGuru, so wasn't anything to do with us and basically told us to shut up, upsetting the rest of the community at the time (if he had been working for me, contractor or not he would have been terminated and never used again for that).

Then when the community is at it's most upset you confirm that most of the leaked work was for your side project/commission based on GameGuru (i hope you didn't use anything that the community had added to GitHub for GameGuru without getting their permission first), so now we are under the impression we won't get the multiplayer or VR stuff, or that nice new UI etc. and people are leaving the community.

Then finally you drop the bombshell that is GameGuru Max.

If you had just been up front form the start many if us wouldn't have been so upset, i for one wouldn't have had my little melt down and deleted almost two years worth of work, it was the silence, followed by vague information, and confounded by someone who purported to represent TGC being rude and obnoxious that has alienated a lot of us.

I know you have to be careful about what you post so that we don't start yelling "you promised!", i understand and agree with that, but information silence, and vagueness can tear a community apart.

Just a thought for the future Lee.

P.S. Personally i think you should just retire GameGuru "Classic" and open source it like you did with FPSC, then if the community wants it to continue they can continue it themselves.

@Belidos I thought I was the only one who notice all of this of what you said. I agree with you. I would like to see what s4real and Nomad Soul can do with the open source game guru.lol

GameGuru is still a viable product i don't think Open Source would do it justice (as Lee has stated he gets in a fuddle with the source code at times), Lee as on many occasion asked if any of the community would like to help with the development and as far as i know he has not had any takers, There are a few talented coders in this community that could make a massive difference.

A lot of 'coders' like to do it their own way a 'Team' is very hard to manage at times everyone has their own take on things and most time is spent debating on how to implement certain things ergo development slows down sometimes damned if you do damned if you don't.

@Lee
" no time to make games for fun ".. I'm just confused on that one, where did
I post anything asking you to build games? Do you mean we are asking for more
flexibility in the lua script? If so, then of course. Anyhow, if my post was unclear,
I would like to see as much flexibility provided in Lua as possible, as we GG users
are constrained by a scripting engine, and not C++ development. There are
a few things that (to me) seem very quick, easy to add to the >engine<, and not
necessarily achievable by GG in lua as it is now. Just one simple case in point:

PrompLocal(e,str) will place text on the screen exactly where the x,y coordinates
align to the entity- with no flexibility or way to compensate for variation. If the 'Y'
is on the ground, that's where the text will appear. But honestly this is a GREAT
feature for showing health for an entity if it could appear at the top. Also with
the addition of color, you could show a bar (*****) for example above the game
object. And to put this on the "top" of the object instead of the bottom, I will have
to flip the object itself vertical 180.
Rotating upside down is just not viable for every model.
Extended ASCII would be particularly nice for that technique, but
'*'/' or '=' or '+' is our only options now.

But anyhow, I understand your point-- you need to get the core of the engine put
together, and don't have time to fiddle with everyone's needs for their particular
project. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone who could still tweak a few things...

Im with Belidos here. Retire game guru after the bugs are complete.
I have no problem buying a product from you lee
But your work pattern is blatant and never fully deliver the best and finished product
I think the way you went about things was wrong. However you were in a need cash situation and took on vr job based on what we funded you for.

The rub was we funded upfront like vr people have.
We got a shoddy product that shows because your now doing an improved version that is what we should of have had originally
And vr guys have jumped in off our crowd funded money, years of patience and help of community and defenders of steam... And then vr reap the rewards off a funded by us product which. we funded in good faith.
Vr suits had you develop what we had made with the funds...you spent a year probably or more on a new gameguru for them with what should of been our promised engine. Not vr though
Note gameguru as been over 8 years now of be patient and i showed you in another thread what we bought into aka the kickstarter

So my point is this you were needing cash we were being a bit tight. steam cheapened your product and will. Maxx too. And then you go awol shownoff what you did for vr business heads
Not give us what you were dangling in front of us. Kick us when were down. Then you say if you want this buy it again as you are getting a lets be honest better then basic character creator and ours is still not functioning correctly and hard to adapt and building editor is limited then shader system is iffy and im still waitimg on weather day and night cycles etc.

You didnt deliver sadly
same with x10
And gameguru is still A very basic engine ok some work some dont. And if you had of marketed or been open as in guys i cant continue unless you all put into this. Etc i guess im saying honestly i would support you i would pay more etc. If you put it to us and sold as upgrade or as maxx as you cant continue.
Its trust thats a bit iffy now. if you will deliver. and how you went about all this that has me hesitant now
However im a positive guy and if you show me real progress afte 8 years of waiting for some basic day night that works well a good weather effective and a good cutom easily editable inventory im in till then im Gonna observe
I know this aint how you wanted it all to go you ha e to show real progress before i trust your product

I did use the word "betrayed" and perhaps that was too strong. But I am very annoyed.

In a nutshell, I will try to distil what my issue is. To truly understand this, you kind of have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has been involved in the community and all things GameGuru for quite a few years. Most of us are already in those shoes.

I found GameGuru and submitted my Silver then Gold pledge. TGC had a vision for GameGuru. It was going to be the "ultimate" game making tool. And we all bought into the vision. A lot of features were talked about - maybe not all of them promised but a lot were discussed by the developers themselves and all this talk built up a certain level of expectation over the years. I personally invested not just money but a lot of faith and time and patience (which wasn't easy because development seemed to be quite slow). In an email to me Rick Vanner said "We're in it for the long haul this time". Everything pointed toward this being a mission to bring GameGuru to fruition. We all bought into that. I felt, in a way, part of this mission; I tried to keep up with the forum; I watched and often participated in the weekly Twitch broadcast; I read Lee's blog, etc. I felt we were all on a journey together. Admittedly, my contribution was tiny compared to that of the developers but I still felt like a little cog in the big GameGuru machine.

After several years, the expectations for GameGuru had been built up so successfully that it never for one moment crossed my mind that it would be dropped in favour of a new app. This came like a bombshell. To again use the metaphor of a journey: We had paid to board a ship, we were told what the destination was and it was exciting. It was a very long journey but we kept going because we had faith we would eventually get there. Then suddenly, the ship moors up on a small island. We are confused. The Captain says, "OK. I have decided to fly to the destination instead. If you still want to come you'll have to pay the airfare and if you don't do so promptly the price goes up." We are left feeling shocked and angry.

As far as I am concerned, it was the destination not the vehicle that I had invested in. And why, for example, when you talked about the need for an improved Character Creator, did you allow us to believe it would be for GameGuru (classic)? How long had you been planning GameGuru Max before you announced it?

I understand it would not be possible to simply upgrade GameGuru to the advanced level of GameGuru Max. I understand why it needed to be redone. But what you did was you changed the vehicle, not the destination. So we have been left high and dry in a place we never wanted to be. GameGuru never got finished. We were misled and abandoned.

I think GameGuru Max looks great and I think it is the way to go. But I think little thought has been spared for those of us who thought our investment (however small) meant something. I am not aware of any concessions being proposed for existing GameGuru users, not even Gold Pledgers. That feels wrong to me.

GameGuru Max is nothing more than what we were led to believe GameGuru (classic) was destined to become.

I will not comment further on this. I will just "suck it up" and fork out to go on the unexpected second leg of this journey. I will not be forking out for a third and fourth leg though. There's only so far you can string us all along.

But it wasn't dropped. Repeatedly, Lee has stated that GameGuru Classic will continue to get bug fixes and that he will strive to implement the promised features. GameGuru MAX, therefore, has been introduced alongside of Classic, not replacing it. You don't have to purchase MAX, can continue to use Classic, and will continue to receive bug fixes (in fact, the entire month of March has been set aside solely for squashing bugs in Classic). On top of bug fixes, Lee has promised to keep adding the promised features.



Again, TGC did not change vehicles. Instead, they've introduced another one, alongside the older one. I'll repeat myself (because, though it's been said many times before in various places, people don't seem to be getting it), Lee has stated that Classic will continue to get bug fixes and that the promised features will be added. This is NOT changing vehicles. This is adding a new one. The older vehicle is still there, still being updated, and promised new features are planned to be added.



How about the fact that Lee is going to continue to FIX the bugs in Classic and continue to ADD the promised features to it?



Did Lee lead you all to believe that Classic would be VR capable back in 2015? This feature, from what I've been reading, is one of the main things that drove the creation of GameGuru MAX. The other features, like being 64-bit, makes MAX a different engine in that it restricts the systems that it can run on (as opposed to Classic). I don't believe that either of these features were what was planned for Classic back in 2015. So, while there are certainly a lot of things in MAX that many would want in Classic, it is NOT "nothing more than what" you "were led to believe GameGuru (classic) was destined to become". Oh, and did I mention that Lee has stated he would continue to fix bugs and add the features he'd promised for Classic?

Mod hat off..

No disrespect Guys but I have loads of products on steam that have been Dropped, abandoned, upgraded, Failed Kickstarter's, Crowdfunding's I have pledged on its so common on the internet I wonder how you haven't come across it unless GG is your only product.
All this is 20 bucks for a whole new engine and GG is still being supported.
Is it just me or cant we just move on and get the job in hand done.

PS .. Still haven't got my original Star Citizen or at least the Squadron 42 I originally pledged for in 2011 and if I want it now I have to pay again !! Seems like 288 million isn't enough … Lee is just Human trying his best and is still here, You want dishonest, betrayed .. I can certainly point you to hundreds of them .

Mod hat back on .

Perhaps this answers your question? News posted December 2019.
https://www.game-guru.com/news-post/gameguru-december-update-released

Whether this is Official or a promise or neither seems to be debatable around here, but leaves not a lot to show for this paid upgrade. 64bit was an afterthought when users started requesting features after the GGMax announcement.
This isn't about money, I have invested over a grand in Unity so far and would have been happy to continue investing in GameGuru but not anymore. I know I don't have to invest and I know I can wait and see what happens but any faith in this product has literally been destroyed by the developers, so for me its definitely not worth the risk of another 5 years of wait and see what happens. Yes it is common for products to be dropped online...doesn't mean people are happy about it though does it? You are likely in a very small minority if you are okay with that.
Nobody like wasting their time and frankly mine is just as valuable as anyone here including the lead developer, difference is I won't be recouping my losses.
Going round in circles in this thread and the frustration caused is down to questions being answered with questions. Then there are folks who don't really have a clue answering questions with authority and acting all frustrated by users confusion which is caused by the 'grey areas' now being presented by 'official channels'.

OK, so GameGuru hasn't been dropped technically. But it will never become what we were led (implicitly or explicitly) to believe it would. GameGuru Max might become that and I hope it does. But GameGuru never will.

Saying GameGuru Max is just another product meant to go alongside GameGuru (classic) is, in my view, a cop-out. I believe that at some point the developers realised that GameGuru wasn't going to achieve its goals unless it was completely rebuilt.

All the passion and most resources will be redirected into GameGuru Max (and so they should). The bare minimum will be implemented in GameGuru classic - just enough to allow the developers to say they never misled us. That isn't the spirit of what I thought I was buying into.

Let's see how much longer GameGuru keeps going now that we know there is a better version on the horizon. Personally, I think they should let it go, just admit it failed to reach its goal and let it die.

32bit or 64bit really aren't features. They are part of what might allow certain features to be implemented. I chose GameGuru partly because I am not very knowledgeable about technical stuff like that. If it gets the job done I am not concerned about 32bit or 64bit. It is clear to me now that 32bit wasn't up to the job. I don't class wordlength as a feature.

The term "separate code branch" in my view does not equal "new app". I do recall reading that text but it was clearly too vague to be interpreted as an announcement of a new app.

BTW, I remember Rick Vanner talking about VR in an old video on YouTube. I wish I could find it so I could post the link.

Absolutely, BY ADDING IT, we had VR support for a very long time, then it was suddenly removed because it didn't work very well. So in fact we have actually got less features than we started with.

There also used to be a PINNED thread in the steam discussions from way back that outlined plans for VR with status updates, but surprise surprise that has disappeared now.

PLUS, the fact that we have a dedicated Virtual Reality section on this very forum, dating back to 2014.

I'd say it was pretty clear that VR was intended for GameGuru right from the start.

It is quite clearly a GameGuru announcement, Max was just a twinkle in his daddy's eye when this was posted.

The original Official FPSC Reloaded (now GG) fund raiser page, clearly stated being able to drop in vehicles. I don't need a lawyer to interpret what that means. That page is of course removed now.....

Vehicles is what made me buy into GG in the first place, thinking it could actually be something more than a just running around with a weapon. By now I envisioned it having real features added like, inventories, HUD\MENU designer, things to aid in actual Game Dev. All we have is FPSC Reloaded with PBR (sort of).

I have paid for MAX already, but I have no hope of it being what the original GG was painted to become. Especially since MAX has no plans to support vehicles.

Not to mention that all the sneak peaks thus far for the forth coming MAX are actually in GG already - the only thing MAX doesn't have yet is the New Renderer and Terrain.

I also agree that you should just retire GG Classic and opensource it. Just put all the effort into MAX.

As said before I don't care any more - all this Classic\Max situation has done for me has created a 'we will see what max becomes'.
My guess is five years from now we will be trying to remember what the Official MAX page had for a roadmap.

I would have easily paid more - even a subscription - to see GameGuru push on to its original roadmap.

For me it is not about the features that are in the GG Classic now, or will be in MAX in five years time - it is trust. I no longer have that.

This is typical TGC garbage. I don't know why I kept buying your products. Start software and never finish it,. Move to New creator or rebrand the old one and add new features... GG will be never be completed. If it is it won't be worth using. I doubt very much Il be buying any more from you.

Max should of been a free upgrade to us long time users...

Save the web page or take a screenshot Just in case.

For me Max seems a way to really get GG up to speed. GG is such a hodge podge of old DB/ DB Pro stuff (even after the C++ conversion) it must be a nightmare to keep on top of. As I have said before I have no problems with Max being a new product and not supporting backwards compatibility. After all we all still have GG already. If GG will be updated as well, then Max doesn't really need to support old legacy stuff.

Yeah, to me TGC just don't have the resources to keep so many tools in development.
They should just finish the GG with the bug fix thing, stop developing it, and open-source it as GG Classic when MAX is officially released.

I would throw out the GG with the bath water, and completely rebuild MAX from the ground up - no legacy stuff, no backward compatibility, no antiquated UI - make it new, make it awesome....

If they need more to do that then up the pledge, and I will pay again.

For me it is not about the money - they should at least double the price imo - what I would like is for TGC to focus on delivering a game engine that is a real game-changer compared to whats out there, and to at least progress the engine to the 'original official funding page', and then announce an upgrade to fund the next development phase.

They have just made it that much harder for anyone to want to risk buying into it in the first place.

OldFlak....

I don't think Lee will do that based on his latest responses but I do worry he's going to be stretching his time far too much with both products.. even with Preben working hard alongside him


Uhm no, remaking GG completely might be a nice idea but it would take ages again and by that time things will change again and the cycle will continue... Better to let Max take its shape from GG and hope the new features are more complete than we're used to before

Can I just mention the fact that I will be involved in some way so it's not just Lee and Preben.

Let's all just take a moment to think that the majority of users are in the age group that this software was aimed at (not an unfair assumption..right?)

What I see here are most of the older users (who are very few around here in reality compared with most actual users who don't post) saying "dump it and start again it's only the cost of a night out".....how many teenagers got that cash to hand and certainly wont be finding 50 bucks in September....now go give yourselves a pat on the back for your complete understanding of the economics involved and generosity of spirit towards the company, forget those kids....y'all are stand up guys...right?
I'm rooting for the underdog here and saying Classic still has some features and bugs that could be dealt with. I see why some would think the way they do...and impatient to do it.
I also see why ensuring that gets attention and at the same time meet the September release for GGMax is for sure gonna cause conflicting opinions on which is more important.
This is why you won't be seeing a lot come in from pre-orders except of course the trickle from those around here and it's also the reason you won't be seeing much from sales come September.
Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to discard the old...you might be needing it.

The reality is that the few around here aren't going to re-float TGC on their own, that ship sailed already.
You want stone cold facts? There aren't enough of you to make any financial impact on the future of GameGuru, people who pledged believed the hype I doubt they will bite twice.

I could stand corrected and be completely wrong but I just feel that maybe the majority market for GG was most likely to be a hobbyist or simply curious enough to see what else they can do with it all the way to a commercial dream release. Most of these are young I would suspect, maybe some unemployed...who knows? Maybe I am just not getting the vibe and out of step around here but I really wish they had fixed up GG a bit more before going all GGMax. Would have made the whole transition a lot less jarring.

@Rolfy-- right. And if the posts on Steam are any indication, then the
>$6< price tag for Classic is getting some good attention for it. And the kicker
is that if the Stand-alone is polished to near perfect, then sure, keep Classic
chugging along- for a little while-- it will still be something to learn building
games by, but the 32 bit will hold it back from dream time!
And if Standalone isn't a part of the March Madness debugging, or later,
then you still have that present to open-- each time you try.

BTW, is GGMax getting dynamic lighting or not--? that's about #2 isn't it?!

GGMax is a massiv replacement of old code.
1) Lee needs to throw out the old legacy UI code and replace it with the imgui skd.
Why?
The UI is very unflexible and then we would never get a search function for entities or even something close. I tried it and gave up after a month of hard work.
2) He needs to rewrite the terrain sdk or to find a open source solution and replace all the old code.
Why?
The terrian sdk is writen in 32bit and that is the only reason why you could not port GG to 64bit. And that is not just a number, the sdk has dependencies which are also written in 32bit and never get a port to 64bit from microsoft. There is no switch, there is only a lot of work.
3) The VR code is developed for the old development VR kits and these companies decided to change a lot in the sdks. This old VR code works, but only with legacy hardware. GG Max removes this old code and replace it with the standard sdk, most hardware manufacturer uses now.
4) Why GG still gets support and is not simply dropped?
When I would be Lee, I would say the same, because it has the same code base. Of course not every feature of GG Max will be seen in GG, but if you fix a bug in the animation system, you could simply move it to GG, or if you add the possibility of swimming, you could nearly copy and paste this Lua code to GG. GGMax will be the main engine, but why Lee should not use 5 min to copy a bug fix or a feature to GG if it is possible....

5) Why this update is not free, after GG is so incomplete?
Would you do it for free? Microsoft released every two years a new office for the full price, antivir software/ cleaner software gets a new release every year. GG is here since 7 years and Lee finally decided to remove the old weaknesses, and I preordered without any doubts.

6) Release GG as open source like FPSC?
FPSC is not open source and the GG source is already like the FPSC source availble.

With this little text, I want to give a developer perspective on why Lee maybe do some stuff. I am not a dev of GG Max or involved in GG Max. I am happy with this step, but I also understand the negative reviews. I was very disappointed of AGK Studio, because the scene editor could not even make some cool menu screens like I could in android studio and the performance was not on the level I expected it. But I also know the source code of GG and I see no other way out of this GG hell than create GG Max. It is not the endgame engine some will hope for, but it is a chance for a new start.

Dropping GG wouldn't make much business sense as its still has a userbase and caters for lower end systems.
If you get GG cheap and like it then the option to upgrade to Max would be more attractive if the user eventually upgraded their system so in a way it could be a great starter platform that could actually help sell Max.
Besides.... Imagine the uproar if he did drop GG..
It would just be seen as Lee going back on what he has already stated and we already know how that goes down

My two cents, I'm happy for GG MAX, but I just want GG Classic to be complete (as it was originally intended), working without those known bugs and with the enhancements that were long-time asked, and then go ahead with the future of MAX.

It's quite exciting to wait for the "next gen of GameGuru", but don't let GG Classic die before being finished.

That's fantastic !!
Now that's what I call a dream team and I believe that includes Smallg as well