Hello All,
This is not a put-down of the GameGuru Max Game Engine, but I feel a little disappointed in it because of the low quality of graphics, sounds, textures, terrain & other aspects of this game engine.
I use the old FPSC game engine back many years ago, & I was disappointed in the same things in it, and now I see not much improvement in GameGuru Max over the FPSC game engine.
The characters look stilted, their AI is awful, the graphics look like something done back in the 90's.
I know that making a game engine is hard work, but please make the game graphics, the AI, the textures, the meshes, & the gameplay a lot better.
Thanks & hope that my post here does not offend you, but hopefully it will taken as constructive.

Are you certain you are talking about the correct engine here? GameGuru Classic has dated graphics, but GameGuru MAX is still in development and has not even had an official release yet. GameGuru Max doesn't even have any AI yet as it's not been developed yet. As far as the "low quality of graphics", you've got to be kidding me? Max uses the Wicked Engine to render and it's not only fully PBR, but has some pretty top-notch graphic capabilities. GameGuru (not Max), on the other hand, does use older rendering technology that is not up to par with Wicked.

So, if you meant GameGuru (Classic), then I would agree with much of what you've said. However, if you're actually criticizing GameGuru Max, especially for things that aren't even developed yet (like AI), then you are waaaaaaaay off base here.

Just to be clear you are being critical about some thing that hasn't even been released officially. ?

Graphics while incomplete is better, light mapping is better (realtime light mapping), textures are better well the shaders are due to prop light mapping, which means pbr shaders are better, while still showing bugs because being incomplete, is still better in almost every aspect.

But again complaining about some thing that hasn't been released as yet.......really ?

no offence taken, GG MAx uses the Wicked Engine on Github-do a screenshot of a 90s game and then a screenshot of GG Max graphics, let's see how different they look.

Not saying mine are amazing to start with but comparing GG to max ..
Im certainly impressed with the difference in my project.

I think Max will be a considerable improvement over GGC
Even at it's minimum development stage, we have currently, it looks promising.
Edit 12/19: Here are screen images from GGMAX using entities created for GAMEGURU Classic

To be honest you can have max and still make a game look shocking. And gg you could get some stunning effects and you can on x9 and x10 fpsc
So i believe it helps to have max and the new pbr and lights etc. And will take gaming to a really high standard but bad ai will always be bad ai good ai will be good. What im saying is itsbwhat you put into it and what you do with it is what will give you your final product

I think classic gg is pretty good for graphics.
But max looks better to me from what i seen.

I dont think they should improve ai. they should make more basic scripts,funcations, and features.

its a waste to impove something for it not to be liked much anyway.

id buy max just for the ui and grass changes

Na, Max has way better graphics than Classic has.

As for the AI in Classic, when I look at what AmenMoses and Defy can do with characters it just tells me the scripts for the AI are rubbish.
Hopefully that will all improve in MAX. But it will likely be at least 12 months before you can really give any critique on Max.

OldFlak....

Max is going to be one of the best looking game engines around.

Its way too early to be making these kind of assessments. Give it another 12 months when people are actually making levels with Max.

Max has fantastic graphics. This is a GG classic map imported into Max.

What technologically advanced alternate timeline are you from? To my recollection, games from the 90's looked like this:





And I didn't pick the worst ones! Infact, each of these titles were considered FUTURISTIC and ahead of their time in terms of graphics and gameplay when they released. Sure GameGuru Classic's graphical fidelity leaves a lot to be desired, but it's FAR from "looking like it's from the 90's", I hate when people say that. Not to mention GG Max is MILES ahead of Classic, it easily looks on-par with modern standards. Sure it's not the MOST graphically impressive thing ever made, but it's way more than serviceable, and very pleasing to look at. Just look at Nomad's screenshots! How does that not look modern?

And for your other woes...none of that is done for GG Max! How can you be disappointed or let down by that which does not yet exist? As others in this thread mentioned, a lot of that is agreeable for the stock content in GG Classic, but Max isn't even out yet, it's a bit unfair to judge it at this stage...it's like barging in the kitchen while the chef hasn't even finished, taking a bite of the raw steak, and complaining it's undercooked and unseasoned! Just hang in there with the rest of us, GG Max is shaping up nicely so far but we should wait until it's at least medium rare before we judge it!

Yeah, I'm just gonna drop ...say... 5 pics from GG classic.











Granted, these are outdated compared to modern fidelity in commercial products but then again, I made these in my spare time on my own. Just a minimum effort as far as custom content goes and I think I managed that it holds up with todays hobbyist/indie standards. If you managed to bring any of that on screen in the 90s you would have been a legend simply due to the hardware limitations back then.

Sure, there is a lot to be desired with the current state of GG max but lets get one thing straight:

Graphics, sound, textures and so forth are all supposed to be your work. The stock content is just that, some example models for you to learn the engine, not a kit for you to make a game out of. If you install unreal engine, all you get out of the box without market place content are some materials and a robot like mannequin. No AI, no nothing. The engine won't make that for you.

If you want cutting edge rendering and art asset pipeline, the unity and unreal engine are free and highly customizable in that regard. If you want ready made content that looks like an entire game studio was working on it alongside a tool that does the heavy lifting for you... nah, thats not happening.

Lets get one other thing straight, GG Max is going to be absolutely amazing.

Look at the pics I posted earlier in this thread then imagine Wolf's levels being rendered with Max quality.

Unreal and Unity will continue to be cutting edge game engines but with Max you will be able to make a game which is very respectable by modern standards and it will be super fun to make.

I do think GG and Max look nice. I think it's okay to point out, however, that the gameplay is lacking. There could be an addition of a visual gameplay editor, like the character movement mapping solutions found in other engines. Is there already a resource on helping creators understanding how to customize/rework gameplay for GG games?

Max will have visual scripting next year so you can see what logic is applied to which things and which entities are connected to other entities etc. The AI and pathfinding are also being overhauled next year.

Also with Max you can add special commands in your scripts that will expose specific parameters in the editor itself so you can modify your own scripts in the editor for testing purposes.

Graphics are essentially done in Max already but all the other stuff will come next year.

once you learn how to make a couple basic objects in blender or whatever and scripting, gg is by comparison a lot easier and faster to use then other engines. thats just from my own experience

Nomad, your optimism around Max always surprises me. Didn't you just spend 5-6 years working on Black Ice Mod, a product specifically designed to clean up the mess left behind when TGC unceremoniously dropped FPS Creator, leaving it unfinished and unstable? And here we are again, 8 years later, with GG Classic in a buggy, unfinished state. What makes you think Max is going to be any different? Sure it'll make some pretty screenshots, but nothing I've seen so far from a gameplay perspective in Max or Classic holds up against a shooter from the last 15 years or so. And I don't doubt TGC's ambition either, I know they want to make it amazing. It's just...their track record of delivering 'amazing' is...well...you should know, you were there.

Just trying to understand where your blind optimism is coming from

AE

I have to agree with AE, track records speak volumes

I agree with Bored of the Rings & Avenging Eagle, TGC track records speak volumes I have very little faith things will change.
But I would love to be proven wrong for sure but, very very very! much doubt it.

Was Fpsc Creator ever a retail digital download or a CD Packaged only ?
It was never a Steam Product was it ?

Digital and cd now its digital if still available

I believe it was originally physical only, and only become downloadable later. To my knowledge, FPSC was never on Steam. I still have my boxed version 1.0 on my desk! I have this theory that whoever the publisher was forced TGC to go through extensive QA testing before they'd let FPSC 'go gold' and be printed. Now we live in more 'enlightened' times where companies can easily self-publish, and we the community have become the QA testers (and what's more, we do it for free). This sadly means we bear the full brunt of all the bugs.

AE

Heh. You should see Nomad's posts on Discord. He is nothing, if not optimistic about Max, I'll say that. I've seen comparisons to Unity and Unreal ... even Unreal 5 (to a degree). I'll just say, I'm not so optimistic ...

Yeah so my optimism is coming from what has been delivered so far in Max.

We begged Lee for 64bit and AAA graphics and now we have both. The editor is fantastic and I'm having a lot of fun just bringing in assets and putting together small levels for testing. Max has put the fun back into making games with GG.

I can now bring lights into my scene, move them around and edit them with everything being updated in realtime. John Carmack said giving the designers on Doom3 the ability to make changes and see the results instantly was a massive improvement for development and iteration. Not only that but I can get from the editor to test game in a matter of seconds.

Now of course I was disappointed like everyone else when the open release announcement came. I was hyped for the release and there had been a solid period of crunch prior to that with lots of cool stuff coming out every week.

However, I do believe the team are doing this for the right reasons and they want to deliver something great. I had some concerns but Lee did a good job of addressing a lot of this on the live stream last week and dare I say it sounds like there is actually a plan for 2021.

There is a long way still to go for Max but this is by far the best start to a TGC project I can remember. I'm not quite ready to hit the uninstall button for Unity just yet but I'm looking forward to when that time comes.

Just to chime in - I instantly ponied up to upgrade knowing the December deadline. I am DEFINITELY unhappy that nothing was delivered in December but I do understand that it takes time to code. I am a programmer, so believe me, I get it. That said, I feel there has been WAY WAY WAY TOO MUCH emphasis on the GUI. I don't give a rat's ass about the GUI. What I wanted was a better looking engine, better terrain, better water, VR support (would LOVE Oculus Quest support but that means Android export - good luck on that), better AI, better import capabilities, multi-player and co-op, lua or python scripting and a way to create a 100% working export that I could make money off of. We were promised VR and multiplayer using Photon, the wicked engine has been utilized which takes care of graphics. The terrain has been improved. Water has been improved (we need the ability to create ocean waves in a large storm) - and those are the main things I want. Everything else, to me, takes a back seat.

At this point, put VR back in, get Multi-Player working and allow us to export to a game and release a beta for heaven sake. You can play around with the GUI till the cows come home after!!!

Mike

20000000000 agree with world class multimedia
Time to make an engine.
Gui is done in my eyes. need to move on asap. Still a Cracking start though

They needed to redesign the UI first so they know how everything is supposed to work before they check all the functionality and stability. Also keep in mind the UI work included the auto updater and brought some other features we would not have received otherwise.

The UI is a pretty big job when you consider all the things which need to be connected. I don't think they are just messing around with colour schemes and fonts to be fair. I can't see anyone using anything other than developer mode though so I'm not sure the different user classes were necessary.

I would like to see the team aiming for a monthly update next year as 3 months since the last build has been a pretty significant gap.

God i hope not. That mistake was made with GG.
You would just end up with crap released on Steam making Max look bad.
Lets have that when its ready much more ready for full release and is stable.

Yeah, I like what I see so far - the potential is there for sure.

It is pointless to have a really cool editor if you can't create a stable standalone when done. So the real deal will be what you can export with it - the standalone should not only work just as it does in the editor, but much better without the overheads, along with how it performs on other peoples machines. Whether or not they can deliver on that is yet to be seen.

At the moment Max is simply annoying if you try to use it due to the constant lockups - hence it is very much on the back-burner for me. Quite disappointed that we didn't get an update this year to at least address that, but I also understand why we didn't get one.

The track record is of course a real and valid concern. I don't think TGC can afford to get it wrong this time, so....... well I remain hopeful, but only time will tell.

So in the event it all eventually fails my main efforts are now in another engine....

OldFlak....

I bought it on physical CD, though a digital option came later (through their website directly). Regardless of whether you purchased it digitally or physically though, your really just paying for its key-code. Its what allows you to use the "check updates" option and use it in Licensed Mode (rather than demonstration mode).

I recall official updates slowing down while it was in a dodgy state. Then the following official updates that did come, were actually parts of mods from the community by users of the engine. We were very thankful for that.

All those GGMAX screenshots by the way look quite nice. Hopefully it will be able to produce good action and gaming experiences as well. Though from experience I believe this will rely heavily on the community contributions to make possible. While I won't be using it for any serious projects, it might be fun to play around with sometime later next year when standalones are possible. I don't think I can make a fair estimate on how I feel it may be by then. Only time will tell.

Forgetting GameGuru for a second did they get it wrong ?
Thats why i asked about physical Media. The point must have come when the physical media, packaging cost more than what FPSC was selling for. Hell i bought mine boxed and sealed for just £1. 50 at Trago mills just before development stopped and with no Steam as a large advertising platform im guessing it was more pure luck it was being purchased by the curious.
X10 sales were probably worse ( in fact i do not think it was hardly selling at all to the general Public )
Not so sure they actually did anything wrong except sales dropped to the point it was just not cost worthy to continue.
So ye i think i would have moved on as well.

For me it all went wrong with GG. Its just not the vision we expected.

No one had the hardware to run X10, there was also a fair bit of libraries in X10 that made it impossible to release the source code.

FPScreator stopped as there was no reason to continue, as they wanted features we had in Gameguru in FPScreator. FPScreator as it was at that point would not have supported it, there were too many physical limitations of darkbasic. However they released it as open source and the end result is while official support stopped community based development could continue unhindered.They simply didnt just stop support and that was that.

Let's be real. Most of their products were made with some version of Dark Basic/Pro and add ons for Dark Basic/Pro - however, Dark Basic Pro was never really ready for retail and was and is buggy and took up a lot of memory and overhead, so it never ran efficiently. If it was a c++ engine that compiled to bytecode or assembler, then it would have been very fast and efficient - but it was made to be easy.

We are still at that point. To make things easy means to make things slow and laggy. Want fast and efficient, then you must learn c++ and code your own.

I'm not at that level either, so I have no choice but to wait on TGC to create GG Max. My specialty is database and encrypt/decrypt. My software protects data. I am not good at the game engine coding side of things. I wish I were.

Mike

I think the issues with FPSCx10 was its dependency on Vista at the time (due to DX10). When most people were more comfortable sticking with stable XP. I actually upgraded to Vista just for FPSCx10 and regretted it, as I much preferred XP; however I will say FPSCx10 was a delight! It had fantastic shaders and visuals at the time. Though all those features later got ported to FPSCx9 and kind of defeated the need to be on Vista or even using FPSCx10. So I actually reverted to an older computer and kept working with FPSCx9 at the time and stuck with XP till Windows 7 came out.

I think it was a bit of a bold leap to rely on Vista for a product. I think that might have contributed to why it didn't stick around longer. Everyone on the TGC forums at the time, I recall, had no desire to upgrade to Vista.

On the topic of FPSC in general, myself and a few others still around here, were around during the discussions on what to do with it. We were asked "do we do a funding drive to continue it or start from scratch and do FPSC-2 (later known as FPSC Reloaded)" to allow for larger maps and a terrain editor. The forum vote went towards FPSC Reloaded. That is why FPSC stopped development from TGC. The mods kept going however. Also coming full circle, when FPSC-Reloaded was released a second question was asked, if it should go 64-bit, several community members asked this not happen as they were still using XP...

Ironically I upgraded to Windows 10 recently just for GGMAX, history repeats



I don't think any changes were made to sound yet. The graphics to me look to be a step up however with the Wicked renderer. I'd wait to much later in 2021 to see how much of an improvement the engine is over GGC. Visually it looks quite good and its even got a decent particle system. Though I believe that might come as a DLC.

Uh the main issue with FPSC was that you could not build a game over 4 levels without the game crashing. It was a known issue, and people begged for the issue to be fixed. If your game was over 4 levels well it usually would crash on level 4 or 5. Maybe level 3, maybe level 6 but 100% it will crash, on top of other memory issues. P


This bug was never fixed and is still present in the engine. In fact if you go check the FPS Creator forums they still get relatively new posts with users asking about the bug. Doesn't matter if on x10 or windows XP or vista. There is still - to this day - no fix for it. Even Black Ice Mod did not fix this issue, although it did help solve the pathetic memory cap per level. Go play one of Wolfs FPSC games, while they are alot of fun and well done, the loading times will be the longest of any game you have ever played. All FPSC games were like that. And then when your done waiting 20minutes for a level to load, boom it crashes.

So that is a pretty big issue for a game engine to have, that you cannot have a full game without it crashing.
And it was just never fixed. Let that sink in.
It really is just mind blowing. Either they didn't know how to fix it. Or they didn't care.
And then they said well, we are moving on to FPS Creator reloaded. So that IMO, not fixing the memory issues, just ignoring it, and other issues with built games was the first major mess up. Then moving onto another engine without ever addressing that problem, is like ok? Is the same problems going to be in the next engine? who knows? A video game engine that cant build video games.

Which is why I'm always crying about standalone issues, I still have PTSD from FPSC standalone games.

FPSC , during its time, was at a level that people actually made games with it. But the biggest showstopper was the standalone issues. Players play a game which is made with FPSC and they sit through 20 minute loading time, then multiple crashes and they then say things like "oh its made with FPS Creator it sucks." Even though the developer had no control over it.
Which GameGuru still suffers from many of the same standalone issues, to this day. So yea even if GG gets to a point people are pumping out games, standalone issues will once again stop the show for the player, which in turn stops the show for everyone.

Well it never got to that point, because were already moving on to the next, which maybe it wont suffer from the same issues that have been there for god knows how long now.

Like even if tomorrow we woke up and Max was finished and everyone got all the features they wanted and could finally make games, the exact same shit is gonna happen. IS everybody here happy knowing that if they built a game, that their game could potentially have the longest loading times of any game that a gamer in 2021 could have to sit through their entire life? What about having random entities just fail to load into the game, or save and load states just randomly deciding not to work? Because all these things, that is an insta bad steam review. Any player that experiences these things, some will blame the game, most will see the engine and they will remember. And anytime they see any game made with GameGuru, they just think "ah its shit its made with gameguru."

This happened with FPSC, I'm not just making this stuff up. GameGuru already started off from behind because of the negative stigma FPSC had. And it didn't come from other devs, it came from players, playing the games. If GameGuru could actually produce games I promise it would happen too. But ok onto a new engine from the start, but what about the ending? Maybe GG made more money than FPSC, but that is just it being a successful failure. To me looking at it from the start it is hard to split FPSC and GG into different things. All I see is that people cannot build games properly, now it is to the point where almost no games are available to even play. So it is hard for me to care about anything new, any new feature, any new promise, or graphics or editor UI or w/e.

This is the last time I'm publicly talking about standalone issues I'm honestly sick of it. Last night I went to build my game, just built 2 levels to test. Had numerous entities fail to load. 145 second loading times, when I havent even put in, audio, enemies, or any scripted events. So I just don't care anymore. w/e

I think it was in some way tied to Vista via licences as well.
Very coincidental that X10 was dropped at around the same time MS announced it was dropping Vista.

Yes, standalone is going to be the most important part of the engine. TGC would really need to rewrite the whole process for max and ensure memory leaks etc do not occur for it to be successful. I would scrap all the old GG classic code and start again with pure c++. That's gonna take a long time most likely. Wicked engine has potential. Would be good to see the new terrain system work correctly and get all the necessary game mechanics in and not just rely on LUA to do all the majority of mechanics. as tgc have repeatedly said a lot of things are not planned for this and that, there gonna be a lot missing on first release whenever that will be. I'm sure max will be great in a lot of ways and better than classic, but do I see a repeat in history. You bet. For survival of the company. Money has to be brought in and the only way to do that is bring in new products each time plus dlc. And that includes new spin offs of what has been.

Yeah, after all the sparkles up front-- a game engine's PURPOSE is as a
Standalone -- Creator. When I look at today's new cars (having worked on
them for some time), I shake my head when I see what some people have
bought. I know it's because of all the flashy, sparkling "goodies", and the
car salesman smooth talking how purdy and sweet looking it is! But candy
is UNHEALTHY! Most of the cars are nothing but a piece of plastic mess
underneath the smooth cover. Everyday I am more disappointed in the
automotive industry. That relates to certain game engines... and quite a few
other products. Not sure why FPSC went downhill and lost several of it's
noteworthy features?

@Kitakazi: Thanks for bringing up my games but they are not supposed to load this long. The old ones load a level in 1 to 2 minutes and the new ones load less than a minute on average. Not sure why they take 20 minutes for you to load, thats awful!

The earlier Game Guru ones (redacted) had unbearably long loading times, thats for sure.

no comment.
Certainly, I think you mean GameGuru classic.

@bbacle I think you must wait with your

From Lee

@Wolf

Sorry, I was thinking of the Redacted game in my head when I wrote that post. I should have specified. But not just your games, but the few popular ones on steam have about as long loading times as Redacted.
The other projects I've played from you were def a lot shorter load times, and since a few years ago loading times have been getting better, in general with GameGuru projects.

I don't wait 20 minutes that was an exaggeration. But it sure does feel like it.

Still, 1-2 minute load times are ridiculous. I mean in that amount of time you could open GameGuru, open the level and start playing it in the editor before a standalone game, which doesn't seem right at all.
Besides GameGuru games, the last time I experienced a load time longer that 5 seconds was playing CyberPunk 2077 and had to wait maybe 20 seconds max?

Horizon: Zero Dawn has some pretty hefty load times at times. And I have a pretty decent PC, too. But none of their levels take as long to load as the few GameGuru games I've installed and played, to be honest.

Try 20 to 25 mins for Battlefront 1 and II

Those are multiplayer games though right? Which, that is a big factor when loading.

A huge issue with long loading times is it becomes impossible to make a game that is difficult or challenging.

How so? I mean, I get that long loading times could break the immersion and nullify any tension you want to carry between levels, but it doesn't affect the challenge or the difficulty of the game itself.

AE

Horizon: Zero Dawn? Nope. Not at all. It's very much a single-player experience.

And I have other games, modern and not so modern, that also have long load times. GameGuru should do a better job than it does, but it's not the only system out there that takes a while to load levels.

I love how the author of this thread hasnt responded a single time.

I dont think gameguru classic OR max look like anything in the 90's... thats just wrong.

No matter the bells and whistles, trying to reach graphics of unreal quality at the cost of performance, the unreal engine is free to download and use as your engine of choice if you want to have beautiful graphics.
But in the end the question will be, does the consumer like your game and will it buy your game, enough titles with simple graphics but with a huge fanbase because the game is addicting and fun to play.
So far i've only seen one really potential game being made which could have a huge fanbase and that is Protascope.
All the rest is simply shooting, no matter how nice the graphics are, there are millions of those shooter games being produced over the world and the better ones come as open world maps and with a proper multiplayer function.
In my view it is beating a dead horse if Max will also only be capable of producing shooters like Classic.
It's not inviting the enduser to be creative in creating his world, a quest, fantasy or educational game.
So for me, if it carries the name game engine, it should have a base for those games other than shooters.