If this was meant as joke, it's not funny. My patience has just about reached the limit.

I'd rather not see daily reports anyway, its just a waste of Lee's time, maybe once a week or so is enough, updates are rarely even once a month or so now so what's the point of getting daily reports when they're going to be pretty much all the same?

I miss the days of the daily blog, weekly news and, later, the weekly Twitch broadcast.

Day 1: Wrote some code, scratch my left arm pit, ate pie for lunch.
Day 2: Wrote some more code, doodled a picture of Ravey, scratfhed my left arm pit, ate fish for lunch.
Day 3: Wrote some code, slept through a meeting with the boss, threw paper plane at Ravey, scratched left arm pit, sausages for lunch
Day 4: Wrote some code, made some cool splash screens, tested some models, scratched left arm pit, had burger for lunch.
Day 5: Mixed it up a bit today, scratched right arm pit, and went home early, Guinness for lunch.

Sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen..

Day 6 ,posted on forum to tell guys how I have got on .

Dave

...And on the 7th day Lee rested and look upon all he had created and said that it was good

Daily update report 26-10-2016
Nothing reported ...

There ya go
J/K

On the eighth day of reports my true love sent to me:
8 Maids a Milking
7 Swans a Swimming
6 Geese a Laying
5 Golden Rings
4 Calling Birds
3 French Hens
2 Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree...

I imagine there is nothing much to report, he may be back at the actual ebe now and not bug fixes and lua additions. I'm not really that fussed at having daily updates really. Perhaps though he has just forgot to update it. I mean he seemed to update every 5 or 6 days at first...

The Twitch stream seems to be dead now though, it was actually updated to say coming in October at least, but imagine my surprise to find no Twitch all this month either! I can't see this changing now and begs the question if he had no intention of making a Twitch, then why bother putting coming in October? Even if your unsure you would be better off saying the truth, no more Twitch streams. At least not regular weekly ones and not very often at all. Better off saying nothing than keep putting nonsense up. I would suggest making the twitch page message something less misleading. Why antagonise people by putting any date at all, when clearly, it is now not being run regularly?

It's bad form to promise what you can't or won't deliver. Make an agreement with the users - stick with the agreement, even if it means a two word update saying 'no updates!' or something. Doubly so after a recent fallout with said users over communication.

I think this will be my last post on the recurring issue and complaints about the great working Lee's and his Team are doing in the background. What I mean is we all want to see more in all areas like news, twitches, etc but this will subtract from the real things we really want to see. I'm sure given enough time we will see great things from the guys.

Maybe we should all stop wasting time moaning and make better games to post on Steam and good examples here. I have seen some reviews of crap games on Steam made with GG and would like to see and post myself something that will help develop GG to an outstanding game engine everybody wants to use for their indie game development. The developers choice.

Sorry for the rant... But I'm sure next week some else will start a new thread on the same subject just to moan... Guys give yourselves a little time and focus on your work. It will pay off soon. If I have offended anyone that is not my intention. My intention is to change your focus as I know I have been guilty of the same thing. But I know I hate to see all the moaning as this is not constructive at all. I'm sure I would not want to see it weekly and probably focus my efforts elsewhere.

P.S. Maybe all moaning threads should start with the word so we can skip these.

Sometimes moaning is the only way you get progress made Of course in this thread where were talking updates it probably won't help.

This thread was not started to MOAN. It was started because I was bored with the lack of communication and I still am.

With honesty there are many existing barriers I'm faced with, when it comes to continuing with my projects. Barriers that are related to the current work being done with GG. So that is why its important for me to know what is going on. So when news/updates comes out, I find it very valuable. As it can help me gauge my projects in the right paths and set better deadlines for myself. For example currently enemies cannot move up and down stairs and the work arounds for swimming are not sufficient.

While I do need news, I don't need it daily.



"Moaning" in the past got us:

2 stage Grid-snapping
Entity Widget
Scaling
Axis Rotation
An undo button
Free Flight Mode within the editing window

Hes probably on another staycation.

I don't think the real problem is lack of news, the problem is consistency. I don't really think a daily or even weekly news drop is really necessary, but maybe every fortnight or so, which can be a short paragraph with no more than 5 lines. This used to happen like clockwork in the past and doesn't anymore. I'm not asking for a twitch broadcast, but I think it's reasonable to ask if we have some kind of consistency with the whole news thing. Say every two weeks on a Friday Lee posts a short progress update, doesn't have to be special or long, just to keep the community actively interested. It would take less than 5 mins to do this... literally

I am dealing with the blackout by accepting GameGuru in its current state (with all its limitations and flaws). My 'main project' is on hold until the EBE is released. However, this has been a blessing in disguise: I have been working on a fairly basic puzzle-ish game. Due to GG's current limitations the game is simple. However, while testing I have found it rather addictive. I am learning to work with the tools at my disposal. Instead of trying to cut down a tree with a hacksaw I am cutting small wooden blocks to make a sculpture.... Well, you get my point, I hope.

Often, simple and basic are best.

Edit: Oh darn! Now my basic project has ground to a halt because the player (wizard) won't fire his weapon after level 1.

To be honest it's got us more than that, there are many lua commands been added because of my badgering Lee about them.

Extra key input commands (other commands don't work when pressed at the same time)
g_KeyPressW
g_KeyPressA = 0
g_KeyPressS = 0
g_KeyPressS = 0
g_KeyPressD = 0
g_KeyPressR = 0
g_KeyPressF = 0
g_KeyPressC = 0
g_KeyPressSPACE
g_KeyPressSHIFT

Getting ambient light fog settings etc (you could set them but not find out what they were originally)
GetFogNearest
GetFogDistance
GetFogRed
GetFogGreen
GetFogBlue
GetFogIntensity
GetAmbienceIntensity
GetAmbienceRed
GetAmbienceGreen
GetAmbienceBlue
GetSurfaceRed
GetSurfaceGreen
GetSurfaceBlue
GetSurfaceIntensity
GetPostVignetteRadius
GetPostVignetteIntensity
GetPostMotionDistance
GetPostMotionIntensity
GetPostDepthOfFieldDistance
GetPostDepthOfFieldIntensity

Sound Commands (allows you to load sounds in via script)
LoadGlobalSound
DeleteGlobalSound
PlayGlobalSound
LoopGlobalSound
StopGlobalSound
SetGlobalSoundSpeed
SetGlobalSoundVolume
GetGlobalSoundExist
GetGlobalSoundPlaying
GetGlobalSoundLooping

There's probably more I have forgot and of course there are other commands that other people have pushed for as well. Some of these I got implemented from emails, some from Twitch suggestions and some from a combination of both and forum posts to show people were interested. The fact is if I hadn't cared enough to push for these, we still wouldn't have them. Oh yes, I also found there was a limit to how many sprites you can display at once and got that increased as well. I think it was 1000 which Lee thought would be okay, which for most peoples usage probably would be, however, with me pushing different ideas around I found 1000 to be woefully inadequate.

Constructive critique can be very useful

I think the problem here is that Lee responded and posted on the forums for a few days and added the update post, then it dropped off completely again. As said above, consistency is key here. People may think his posts were merely damage control, when he appears for a few days, then vanishes into the mists again for weeks and weeks. I think the news feature should be used more here. I mean on a Friday, he should take a few minutes to copy his list of fixes additions etc and post them with a few sentences and work done, or not. Then people would not feel out of the loop and would be (mainly) happy.

I am not massively happy with TGC's direction at the moment for reasons some may know and others won't. This news issue though, as many have said, is not hard to fix. 5 minutes on a Friday at the end of work is all it would need to fix this. A bigger more in depth feature can be done when updates arrive.

consistency is important, I just hope that GameGuru is not on the "backburner" as regards to TGC's other products. I quick, few lines would be great. Maybe we are in for a massive surprise with the next update.

Think we're floging a dead horse here,how long dose it to post a few words .

Dave

I was just naming off the major additions that were implemented based off my initial "moaning" in the community. Or at the least I felt I was for-fronting without backing down on. The community power is real.

Though what is going on lately? Why is it that the last official news update has been two months away? I heard TGC is working on a new product is that true?

Yes, from TGC's Facebook page a month ago: "TheGameCreators have a brand new Game Creation Tool coming very soon. It will release on Steam Early Access in the near future. We'd like some keen Beta testers to give it a whirl before then. If you'd like to test drive it then please respond to this message... There is NO coding with this new product and it's STEAM only."

Game Guru Reloaded, perhaps?

But really, what is up with that? I will be furious if that's true, unless it's better than GG, of course, but why stop this train just to jump on another?


EDIT: I just read that facebook post. They started testing the new Game Creation Tool October 12th I guess. Now it REALLY seems like we've been abandoned, LOL. CRAZY!

EDIT #2: Thinking a little further, or perhaps further back, really, wasn't Reloaded/GG sold with the promise to be their flagship product? I think I'm beginning to understand the business model here. Start a product, develop it half way or so, then start another. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty sure it is a product unrelated to Gameguru not a competing product and regardless of bringing out 10 new products, additional funding results in additional money to develop gameguru.

So no point in speculating

All the threads about this topic have been speculative (at least until they veer off course)! There is nothing speculative, however, about the amount of attention to a product that is lost when a small team opens up more products than they can handle! Lee is a great programmer, we all know that, but anyone with 10 jobs is only going to give 10% of their time to each over a given period.

Assuming this new product has anything to do with Lee at all ....
Anything unconfirmed is just speculation ..

Thats always been the problem with The Game Creators company. They start one project and and never finish it and start working on another. Or like you said, devote half time to one and less to the other.

Enough with the speculating !!!!

Yes I am on the beta team, considering people are aware of another product in development, I can tell you it's got nothing to do with gameguru it isn't even a competing product, it isn't even a game development tool, rick is in charge of the project and has nothing to do with lee directly. Any information more I will be breaking the NDA.

So you guys can stop it already and chill.

WiD is right, let's keep calm and stop speculating for now.
And, from a business point of view and reflecting the decades of experience in the games industry I have, I would say it's absolutely unlikely that Lee would be spearheading another NEW production with so many open issues and promises left on GameGuru. In the age of Steam, this would be commercial suicide, the shitstorm wave would hit the shores all over the Store page and in the end noone would buy an Early Access product from TGC anymore.

As Lee and Rick are also veterans in publishing, they know that.

I personally expect that Lee will be soon releasing a kick-ass update for GG together with some lines explaining that he felt it was more important to work on the update than to brag about it. This would also prevent high-profile content creators and community idols from leaving. We lost a significant one already, and I feel that's enough.

@Ertlov

What annoys me a fair bit is users not allowing TGC not developing other products, the fact that they only have two products in the stable, compared to having various products until awhile ago meant they were pulling in revenue from lots of different products even games at one point.So adding additional products is a business and nothing more, it helps with funding and keeps the boat afloat at TGC, without it there would be no gameguru, no AGK and TGC would cease to be.

The fact that gameguru sales have tapered off which is to be expected, you need to start looking at other avenues for revenue, and that means some people need to do the hardest thing possible, be a little less selfish and patient....

I am totally with you on that one!

However I know the harsh other side of the business, both on the Community Management and Producing weet spots. If you start developing (and, even more, promoting / announcing) something new while your previous product still is a barely seaworthy hull in the dock being tampered on just to fulfill at least some of the features what had been promised, you get slaughtered.

And I don't think TGC would do that without having a solid proof that the key ressource for the hull is staying on it untill it sails the high seas.

I also have been Beta testing the new product and can confirm its nothing like GameGuru and both can live happily together side by side ...As stated in business you don't make huge announcements that will start panic and unnecessary speculation like this..


And this...

Proving the point exactly ..

TGC is a business and need to make money to survive like everyone else ... Its better to wish them well so we can all benefit from the success rather than go off on one with silly comments until we have all the facts and know what we are are talking about ...

My issues is the lack of transparency and communication. I'm allowed to have these concerns as a costumer of a product that I feel is incomplete.

They have no obligation to share any information of forth coming products, even what is, what is not, it's is beta product that has very little to do with lee, and the product isn't nearly ready for some thing worth while to share.

You are accustom to lee making regular updates tweets and this and that, while it is good practice, it is also an none essential task and obligation, you don't see unity or unreal even crytek updating daily, even game developers don't, because lee did it for a good while as there was opportunity to do so, now not so much.So honestly the daily updates was a luxury most took for granted.

So no If think we are over stepping here a little, and being a little demanding, my opinion at least

I see Lee visited the forum a while ago,surprised he did not post anything.just seems of.

Why post this an then not bother.
Dave

As I've said before within this thread I don't need regular daily updates.

Just in my 10 years of being here, like yourself, I'm starting to understand how things are around here.

I disagree with you here.

Firstly, with you cannot compare those engines to GameGuru in this way, they're finished products, the only updates are additional fluff and the occasional bug fix, GameGuru is very good, but it's still only barely usable , it's not in a state that's anywhere near finished, just for the sake of customer retention we need to be kept notified of the development, otherwise you will get people like the above posts thinking we've been deserted.

Secondly, Game developers do regularly update their customers while developing, most large game developing companies almost always issue updates at least monthly, especially on major release games, heck most of the larger developers actually have teams specifically for keeping their customers updated, some even have a team for each game, look at Blizzard for example, whenever they are developing an expansion they have monthly live broadcasts discussing progress, they have weekly updates on their websites, and they do that for each of the games they develop.

I'm not saying Lee should be telling us everything he does on a daily basis, that's just not achievable, but a quick line saying "i worked on x y z this week" once a week isn't a big thing to ask, and it will go a long way towards retaining the customer base.

I was not going to but in to this but there is some things that need to be clear. yes Lee is most likely working on the new software and it is like an upgrade version of 3D game maker that TGC made years ago. but don't be mad this is normal for TGC as they need to bring in money to keep working on these software's. The reason why I said Lee is working on it because he is the lead coder or programmer of TGC. the other guys most likely create models for the software's or add in a feature here and there and do bug fixes. also Lee use to jump from Dark basic to fpsc to fpsc x10 with updates. the 3D game maker did not get much of any updates. so going by TGC past track record this is most likely true but like I said not a big deal. they are a company that needs to make money so they can continue to support their software's. also more poof to this look how Lee had to jump from guru and help out with AGK with the new update release some time ago. then jump back to guru for the 132 update we just got. then jump back to the new game making software and then made the 133 updates to guru then jump back to the new software for another update then post some more updates about the 133 guru update and now new software ,game guru and maybe some AGK.lol. so yes he is very busy and so is the team and Rick. before anyone ask Rick is most likely Steven Jobs of TGC and Lee is that other guy that did all the programming for Apple. looking at it this way you can't complain too much on why they are MIA from the forum or with any news when some times there is no news about game guru. also you got to take in consideration that each software needs it's bug fixes which is not easy for Lee to do and it takes time to find the source of the problem.

Interesting to hear the different points of view here.makes for good reading.

Dave

@Belidos
Look at my join date buddy, I have been around since the early days of FPSC, I joined 2 or 3 months after FPSC was released. Have a look at the monthly newsletters from way way way back they had a dedicated newsletter editor, lots of products ect.
https://www.thegamecreators.com/archive/newsletters

You still don't get it buddy there is no obligation from any one to provide news, even daily at that.You can disagree as much as you want on this subject, have a look at those news letters from the early days around issue 38 and you will notice some times useless information not even screenshots.

Seriously ????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some times I wish people would read back what they just written. Have you actually bothered to check at what version unity is at or UDK, even leadwerks for that matter. Upgrades and updates.....

[img][/img]

"Finished product"


Is it out on steam ? is it called version 1 ? It is then by definition a finished product. Think about it before replying irrespective of updates, fixes, features ect which all game development tools get from time to time it is a FINISHED PRODUCT.....

Go have a look at the unity and unreal blog, is there news related to the actual development of the engine with in the first page, it's all news indirectly about the engine, from which barrel do you expect TGC to scrape from ?

I am done on this subject, then end.

From a legal point of view, this is not 100% correct. TGC is a company within the E.U. (at least now they still are, Brexit hasn't happened yet) selling to customers within the E.U. - customers who are under the overprotecting umbrella of the EU customer protection laws. Which don't apply to me, I am a company and not a customer

But we had several court rulings in the past that made it quite clear that no shiny Steam Early Acess warning or Beta description saves you from delivering all features advertised AT SOME POINT when money was taken from customers. And regular (of course not daily!) public updates on progress were often the key to distinguish between "willing to fulfill with reasonable effort, all is good, refund this customer only and go on with your work" and "hereby we sentence the company to refund all customers, o matter if they want a refund or not".
Special Case: If you know you won't fulfill and still take money for this product, you are entitled to a "go to jail" card!

I had been witness in one of those lawsuits (a big one), and especially in German speaking territories the judges usually have no idea about software development and tend to apply insane demands on the publisher / developer to fulfill even informal promises on websites and in product descriptions.

However, I don't think it's reasonable to talk about legal implications here, we have a software we can basically work with and are only waiting for improvements to make it more that what WE had in mind when purchasing it.

But this legal framework and all other points mentioned by me above are the reason why I son't believe in the



part and go with

I actually really miss the newsletters and always enjoyed reading about the news and happenings in my mailbox each month. My support of TGC dates back to '99 from the v0.4 build of DarkBASIC (before TGC as a company existed) and their products have brought me much enjoyment over nearly two decades so I will always be a huge fan and contributor.

That said, I think Belidos's remarks are fair. While TGC is under no obligation to provide news on any regular basis, they had announced plans of doing exactly that, which is why some now express concern and the reason for this thread in the first place. This happened with AGK as well, where a development thread was started for AGK updates that began with daily and weekly updates, then trailed off into monthly updates and then stopped entirely a year ago (although development still continues, there is rarely any news until the updates come out sporadically). I don't disagree with Belidos that the lack of transparency and communication can adversely affect the user-base, excluding the diehards of course



By definition, yes. Although Lee himself conceded recently that the wording and details on the Steam page were a bit ambitions given Game Guru's current state: " It professes many things, misleads by misdirection and omits some very blatant home truths...I am certain a good portion of our negative Steam reviews stem directly from the fact we painted a picture of paradise, and gave them a sort of hell. I'd prefer lower sales with informed users, than lots of sales with frustrated, disillusioned users."



While I don't believe comparing GG with any of the others is very useful or warranted, under the Technology section of the Unity blog they do post technical under-the-hood type developments regularly (three in the past week).

I see one of the diehards (and one of the best content creators for FPSC and GG of all times) currently doing miracles in Unity and fear he will never come back.

Just noticed how long some of us have been around,I joined the same time as rick vaner.wow how time flies.do you remember the dark basic disk With the little slip of paper with there address and phone number in.

Dave

Get used to it, we are really old.

Can it build games?
Can it do the basics of a game engine?
Can software be used for the intended task?

Then it IS a finished product irrespective of upgrades and updates, there is no grey area or lack of definition or any thing if the product fulfills its intended purpose. Seriously gameguru backers was going to receive version 1 on printed media you can't get more finished then that.

Why not ? News is news irrespective of which company.What annoys me is the sense of entitlement to news or updates, irrespective of what lee said, there is no obligation to do so, yet there is the nagging insistence on news, to what ends exactly, what is the end game here for users asking about news or updates ?

No, WOD, I am getting it, its you that is not getting it.

All those engines are technically finished products, they are at the point where if they did nothing else to them then they would still be able to sell them without needing to do anything major to them. Everything they update and fix from this point is additional fluff and general maintenace of the product.

They don't need to do much more than make press/advertising anouncements at that point.

Gameguru is not in that state, it has some glaringly obvious features missing , or in a just workable state, when you sell something in that condition you need to make sure your customers are aware of what you ate doing, otherwise you will lose them, it'svery simple.

True they're under no obligation to keep us informed, however legal obligations mean nothing when dealing with customers. They are under a MORAL obligation to their customers in this case, they also have a business obligation to keep their customers informed and happy, otherwise they won't have any customers.

Its business 101, keep your customers happy and informed.

As I said, its daft to expect daily updates, but a quick one line update once a week takes literally seconds and keeps customers happy.

For me, GameGuru is "finished" when the Votingboard is done.

Of course it is a great engine yet. But I still miss many things. GameGuru is called the easy GemeMaker. That is possible. But to make easy really great games, some things still must be added. For me (!) GG is not finished.

You can even make Games in qBasic. And it's not a hard thing. But I wouldn't compare qBasic to GG as I wouldn't compare an AAA Engine like Unity to GG. They are all way to different. That's ok. Nobody says that Unity is an easy GameMaker. I don't want GG to be Unity2.0.
I just want GG to arrive in 2016. Or just 2015. There are diffrent claims, even for an easy game.

The bottom line is if your customer base is getting riled up over something involving a stated commitment of communication and you just ignore them... you're going to piss them off. It's not rocket science. We can argue up and down about how finished the product is or not but the reality is:

IF YOU COMMIT TO SOMETHING, YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL HOLD YOU TO IT

96% of customers (per the 4 billion dollar company I used to work for) will simply cancel quietly and move on. The 4% who complain should be looked at as important bellweathers of how the remaining 96% feel.