Currently the only way to host and join games is for every player to own a copy of GameGuru or for a multiplayer game to be Greenlit on Steam. Unfortunately the way Greenlight works you need to pay a one-off fee of $100 to Steam and even after that you need to have your game voted for before it can be released.

Here's the second worst case scenario : a Bronze Pledger has 8 friends/family members that want to play a multiplayer map, he has 2 keys - one for himself and one for one of his friends/family - leaving the other 6 people needing to spend $19.99 to buy GameGuru to play the multiplayer game.

Here's the worst case scenario: Mr Joe Public buys the game on Steam. His 7 friends want to play a multiplayer game but each have to spend $19.99 to do so.

The only current alternative to everyone buying GameGuru is to have the game Greenlit by Steam, meaning that you're going to have to pay a one-off fee of $100 and have the game getting enough votes to be Greenlit. This is NOT going to happen even if you're willing to for out $100 to take the chance.

We need a non-Steam executable, the same way the original FPSC did years ago.

Hi Snowdog,

Thank you for your suggestion.

This is a planned feature and we will develop this once users are happy with the Steam multi-player.

Cheers

Jay.

To be honest ( and im being serious ) I wasn't aware you could play other games online even if you didn't own it ?
So does that mean games like Call of duty etc I actually don't need to own some of these games to play them online.
I can just play MP excecutables ?

Synchromesh, the difference is that GameGuru isn't a game, it's software used to create games.

@synchromesh, yes you always need to own the games to play them online. The difference here is that the majority of standalone GameGuru games will likely be free, but users will still need to purchase and install GameGuru to play them online. This is akin to not being able to play an Unreal game online without first purchasing the Unreal Development Kit itself, even if the user has no interest in creating their own games.

Truthfully, I think that the current multiplayer functionality of GG will be of limited use in the real world. It is handy for showing others who own GameGure a WIP map or having some quick bouts with friends, but I doubt many casual gamers will go through the process of purchasing and downloading the entire GameGuru package (a whopping 2.4 GB download) along with the game itself just to play its levels. Currently, the levels must all be loaded through the GG editor to play online which also adds to the complexity for end users not familiar with the GG interface.

That said, I would hope TGC would return focus to completing the core engine before dwelling on redoing the entire multiplayer system so that it is not Steam-reliant.

Your exactly right ... I am not aware of any other similar software that has this feature..My Leadwerks doesn't nor my Axis Game Factory .
I cannot speak for UDK or FarCry engine but im guessing each person would need to purchase these products to play online.

A standalone multiplayer exe that anyone can play online without the software is pretty unique and to my surprise TGC say this is the plan ...We are actually going to have this feature which to me is incredible...

What worries me is an offline copy of GameGuru would be capable of making exe's anyone could play whereas right now its all pretty secure over steam ..

It isn't unique at all, as xCept has already mentioned. Unreal, CryEngine, Unity...all of the major game engine SDKs let you produce standalone games, both single and multiplayer. It's a standard thing for all major engines.

Think I'm going to have to stick with single player games until this is sorted out properly, because the only way to release stuff on Steam is to go through a Greenlight submission which you have to pay a $100 one-time fee for (after paying that fee you can submit as many games as you want though) and you'll need people to vote for it before Steam will allow it to be released.

At least with a single player game you can create a standalone executable so you can freely distribute it any way you want.

Well you got me.... I really was not aware.... Leadwerks, Axis I been buying the wrong stuff and spent a lot in the process
But as stated the good news is its planned

GameGuru is closest to the tool I have always dreamed about and I could have had it all this week for about £9:80 ...ish in GBP including its 25% discount.
to think I could buy 4 GameGurus for HALF what I paid for Leadwerks and do a lot more ..

That's like.... a phenomenal deal

I agree. I've worked with UDK3, Unity, and now still have an ongoing though unnecessary subscription to UE4, but what GG will be is what I've always wanted. I absolutely LOVE UE4 but I work my day job an awful LOT so the time I have to devote to learning it is minimal. Learning/studying something after 12 hours work just doesn't do it for me. Blueprint to me is far more complicated than just typing out the code. A good Primer would suit me well. I haven't found one. The documentation for UE4 is fantastically extensive, but too many hyperlinks, although useful, can get one (me!) easily lost. I'm not a C++ programmer, so that to me is not an option. GG will come of age, I am confident; it will take time, though, much more than I had initially expected. I figured 2 1/2- 3 yrs., tops. I'm now betting 5-6. It'll get there, though.



EDIT: Oh, and by the way, the whole reason I was here before I went off topic, was due to snowdog's original comment, which led me here from another thread: I will never force friends/family to buy GG to simply play my whims, nor will I ever submit a game to be "greenlighted" to Steam unless I've somehow miraculously/spontaneously come up with an idea for a game that just HAS to get out there for the masses. I'm sure the ability to play multiplayer off Steam will come about (as I've read on a few other threads), eventually, and I think it should be up there in priority, while multiplayer is the focus. Other things have been pushed to the back burner, so now is a good, perhaps the best time, to do so, IMO.

This is already the case. It is only multiplayer that won't work with standalone EXEs. After initially installing GameGuru from Steam, you can launch it at any point even without Steam running by using the EXE at \steamapps\common\Game Guru\ from inside the Steam folder. Then you can create the standalone via File > Save Standalone. This will create the final package in your Documents directory and that can be distributed and played by anyone, it doesn't require Steam.

"The Game Creators today announced the release of GameGuru, their new game which allows users to create, share, play and sell their games in a virtual 3D world. "

I asked Rick if this was a typo, he said it was not.

indeed, the old FPSC solved the multiplayer from years ago, why the GameGuru can't due this ?!?
Maybe some friends want to play in their local network (at job, in vacancy or in another places where is not any internet connection).
Another bad example with this GameGuru on steam: I must have internet connection and steam started, to I can build some scene on my single player map. Why ?!?

@ Old Larry. pretty sure you can run it offline as well. I haven't tried as it is no problem anyway really, but I imagine if you need to you can run it directly from the install folder.

Now, regarding the original post. Multi-player has been in development for many months now, it has always been clearly stated that it needs Steam to run. I voiced concerns about it at the time for the same reasons you mention. I'd love to release a game on Steam, but in reality, most of us will not manage that feat. Still, it is certainly not impossible these days as indie dev can be well supported if you have a good concept. I don't think GG is there yet though, much more polish needed.

Your points about having to buy x amounts of GG seem a little odd. Why is this an issue? You can make single player maps no problem, for multi-player you need steam and others to have GG, same as any other game. So there isn't an issue. This is all still alpha, or beta, and so will evolve to cover more areas over the next year and I suspect, longer.

Comparisons with Unity, Cryengine et al are now moot. GG has been released at £15. You can release games royalty free. No other engine offers that. Yes Unity has a free version, but if you wanted to sell a game, you still have to pay. It is also a tad more difficult to use, although not as bad as one may think. Although making an online multiplayer FPS level to compare with a GG one would be quite a task, well beyond anything I have managed with it. Still, I always say, go try it. If you find it better then great, all power to your game making! If you find it rather more cumbersome than you thought, you will probably return to GG. That's fine too. Sometimes it is difficult to appreciate what you have, without actually trying the other options as well.

In my experience, the community here is also hard to beat. I have never used another programming language where the community comes close. I am not quite sure why, as I have tried many other things in the past, but the forums here and all other TGC forums are the most informative and helpful I have seen. One main reason I always stick with TGC products! I've been around since 2000 and know the drill by now

I think for the price it stands a great product overall. I really doubt anyone will be expecting Cryoengine performance for that price. I do expect more speed increases over time yet though, GG still renders the entire scene ahead and does not use occlusion yet. I have seen over 2.2 million polys at times on some levels, that's insane. Working occlusion would reduce that dramatically.

I'm glad to hear that standalone mp will be added, because when I backed this project thats kinda what I thought was planned
in the first place. Steam mp is great, it's fantastic, but it is one way or the highway for multiplayer.

Enough of these types of posts regarding standalone multiplayer servers that you can host on dedicated machines.






This is easily one of the most requested feature at the moment.
I'd really like it if you would stop saying "if it is requested we could add it" - it's been requested a BUNCH now.

When is something classified as "requested enough" to be a more immediate feature. Is this feature coming soon?
There should really be some type of "immediate plans" page or a Trello or something so that customers know what is going on.

I don't like the Steam infrastructure, I run servers for a living and want to host my own dedicated servers that I can optimize and know what is going on. I don't want to be forced to use some specific servers, that's just silly.

Do you want to use just Steam's infrastructure for Game Guru's website? No, that just wouldn't work out at all. It just seems completely silly - I can't filter the network, I am super limited to what I have access to, I can't optimize the server or have a dedicated 24/7 server. Sure, it makes things simple - but simple is not always good.

That brings me to wonder if the standalone server software (if it ever exists) will work on Linux... oh wait it probably needs to be "requested enough".

Edit: Sorry if I sound a bit ranty, but I think enough people have suggested this for it to be higher on the to-do list, so I'm just trying to get my point across. I am pretty happy with GameGuru's current features, and it is for sure worth the price; but when it comes to multiplayer games GameGuru is useless to me. I could spend $10 on Garry's Mod and receive more features and functionality in regards to multiplayer, and sell whatever I make through similar means of the GameGuru store that exists for Garry's Mod. Right now GameGuru is amazing for singleplayer games, not so much multiplayer at all.

My main point here is that there really should be a "Upcoming Features" list for the next version/next couple version or something. Unless I am completely missing it, then my bad. I feel customers are a bit misinformed right now, and the responses support give seem so bland/generic/the same every time (no offense!).

+1 on the dedicated standalone.

I have been away from the scene for a while now and have returned to see such an improvement overall.

Aside of the Standalone MP executable... with regards to multiplayer functionality, TGC don't actually need to put too much effort into the engine if we can access the engine via LUA. All TGC would have to do is implement some core functionality (and maybe gametypes) with basic fundamentals (ie: Capture the Flag/DM) and we can script the rest via LUA. Thus decreasing the burden on TGC to implement hardcore engine routines and allowing flexibility for us to heavily mod on top of the existing engine ourselves.

Sounds like a win/win to me.

I completely agree with this. Take a look at Garry's Mod for example: all of the base gamemodes that come with the game were made using the Lua that was added to the engine in the first place. In fact, this made contests more fun - because if you won the contest your gamemode was included with Garry's Mod (this is how TTT came shipped with the game)

Really, this is how it should work for the most expand-ability. If you make the engine more accessible via Lua, and just make it so any game can be made via the Lua, that would make this game engine extremely popular. It seems kinda silly to hardcode these gamemodes, like Sting is saying here.

I will be comparing this engine a lot to Garry's Mod because in a lot of ways, it's the same.
While Garry's Mod is a... mod... you can literally make anything you want with it (with some limitations of Source engine), and make money as well - royalty free - Garry has stated that himself.
Not to mention Garry's Mod remains in the top 5 most popular games on Steam and has done so for what, almost 10 years now? I remember it crashed the Steam servers back when it came out for sale in 2006.
Talk about a game that ages well.