Some comments from a 79 year old silver pledger who makes (simple) games as a hobby: I also would like to know how things are going and what Lee and co are up to. Ignoring all the legalese - it's simply good PR.
My big worry, speaking purely as a customer: GG can't do the things FPSC could: I can't build a castle and go downstairs to the dungeons; the AI stop dead at the bottom of stairs when chasing me; I can't go into battle with a group of allies and fight with a group of enemies, etc., etc. Now I know one or more of you developers are going to tell me that you can actually do all that by changing this or that file, etc., etc. Yes - but this is supposed to be an EASY game maker. It's anything but. The people who buy it are not expecting it to be a requirement that you delve into the inner workings of the engine to get simple things to work - we are not all coders, and I know most of your buyers won't be. For the life of me: they had an excellent foundation in FPSC - why didn't they just build on that??
Grandpa MIke

I think GG will be "EASY game maker" when finished; meantime we can get non-exists features working "thinking out the box", is so, when GG loss their "EASY game maker" brand.

I afraid that's not the answer you are waiting for, but some elaborate explanation coming from some TGC developer, like many others here, even me; here we are surfing between :
a- I want to be regularly informed by a developer.
b- I prefer that the developers work on the next update.

I personally expect a useful and functional update, only this way Lee will calm the animus, and the uncertainty of the users.

Misinformation usually produce speculation, as reasonable consecuence.

Afaik Lee will work with Ais, when EBE finished.

GG is not "difficult game maker", just unfinshed engine yet.

3com

I have to agree with you Grandpa mike. Certain fundamentals that are needed out the box are just not working. I have fun coding with lua for sure and have made some games I never envisaged GG for at all. Mainly because the AI is somewhat derpy for a decent FPS or 3rd person title. However, it's about time precedence was given to the core as I and many others keep shouting for.

AI should work to a far better standard than it does currently. Hills? Forget hills, your AI will get stuck on mole hills. Stairs and slopes also not an option. Not good and this far in, to quote a certain Presidential candidate, it's pretty bad.

If the AI actually worked, didn't get stuck on the smallest thing and behaved a little more intelligently it would be a far more enjoyable program for many people. In fact it would be tremendous!

The trend Ive seen over time seems to be. Do some code just to make them happy, go on vacation. Do some more code, plug your other new product, put GG on hold go on vacation. etc etc This seems to be the standard when it comes to The Game Creators. When I say this I fall back on failed products they have made. FPS creator x10 would of been great...Killed it. Realm Crafter would of been great, killed it. Now Im not 100 percent sure if TGC created realm crafter or just picked it up, but I know I purchased it from them. The sad thing is X10 looked way better then GG and had better features. The only 2 things GG has going for it as this point are easy static object creator and terrain. GG needs

Easy import of custom animated characters. It has needed this for ever.
Way more shaders and a shader tool
Better AI
Inventory system
Quest Editor
Weapon Editor
Particle Editor
Per Pixel Lighting

We all know this, yet it hasnt happened and is just sad.

> FPS creator x10 would of been great...Killed it.

I still load up the X10 tech demo from time-to-time and admire how clean and crisp everything looks with the gorgeous lighting and shadows. Understandably when they first debuted X10 it was way ahead of the curve (as I recall one of the first X10 products out there when the majority of PCs couldn't support it) so that stifled the interest. Yet, when FPSC:R / GG kicked off times had changed with virtually every graphics card and OS supporting it for years. I think X10 would had been the way to go based on the strides already made on that from Classic, although my first choice would had been for them to develop it using AGK (while working to improve AGK's command set and features simultaneously) so that it would be GL-based and fully cross-platform compatible. There were a lot of missed opportunities with GG, imho.

Your wrong on that one .... At the time X10 was specifically coded for Vista only .... Vista was the future according to MS with hundreds of promises ... Until MS realised it was rubbish and dropped it.. It was a bit pointless continuing X10 at that point ..

Yeah.. I've had this issue and brought it up since day 1. But you know a Character Creator and Multiplayer seemed to be more important to the community at the time.

We need a Navmesh solution or an alternative work around. Perhaps after EBE. Problem with Navmesh though is performance may take a hit. AI navigation is a fundamental aspect of ALL 3d environmental games and engines. Why its considered by some a feature request... makes my head want to explode. Navmesh/AI Navigation has been set as the lowest priority for GG. I find that to be both amusing and depressing all at the same time.



Several years ago the community was asked what should be Kickstarted. A revamp of the FPSC engine by improving upon it; Or starting from scratch. The community in the forums at the time voted to start from scratch. I can personally say this wasn't something I voted for but I was well convinced that we would get everything FPSC had + more. Unfortunately we got the plus stuff, but everything FPSC had, is still not present. Those things being fundamental in my opinion. So I've been stuck waiting years, on behalf of the majority vote years ago.

By rebranding FPSC Reloaded to GG, all promises died.

If that is the case, it makes me wonder why it wasn't done. No-one who has used the original FPSC can argue, this is not from scratch. That it's based on the original FPSC code there is no doubt. Yes it's been upgraded to C++, but it is still very much based around the original FPSC engine. It's just had a terrain system added and been swapped from FPI to lua. I have no illusions that this code is completely original, it is still using the same modules as FPSC did in the main, just converted to C++ rather than the original DB code. Along the way, we have often seen old bits of FPSC hanging around that no longer worked, so if it were started over from scratch, that would not be the case.

So, I don't think Reloaded was ever a fresh start, just a reconfiguration of old code that has been improved over time and added to.

I still think that AI should have been working a whole lot better from day one. I mean how long did it take anyone to notice it was terrible? I'm sure most will have seen it within a few hours of using the program. Surely in testing this must have been noticed? If not then they need to improve their testing procedure. But now, years on we are still waiting for AI we can use. Really not a good testament of a game maker of any level. It's not a feature to be voted for imo, it should be working or at least actively being worked on. Game-play is the most important factor in any game. I actually remember the AI being a little better at one point...

A shooter without half decent AI is normally a dull experience. I know I will live with average graphics if the game-play is good, I won't the other way round. At this point I think we are fairly justified in saying hills, stairs, even ladders! All these should be in and working by now. We saw examples of ladders and stairs before it was released! Oh, and the basic running around could do with some polish as well.

The question is when are we finally going to see AI that works? I'm not asking for much, just being able to navigate the map and chase you down more realistically. I'm not asking for them to vault over desks or roll under shutting doors or slide down cliff sides. Just the basics.

I should correct myself, as I just noticed that the AI issue is actually at the top of the community voting board now. This will probably be the toughest hurdle for Lee. I'm glad though that the community is on the same page and have readjusted their votes. Thanks guys.

Me to

Dave

Although you're correct that the majority of users did vote to start from scratch, TGC did not go that route. Rick even noted when the Kickstarter launched that "From a company point of view we felt that starting a full development again would most likely take far too long. The original FPSC started back in 2005, so you can see how much work has been put into the original...This will be a significant upgrade to the original FPS Creator. So all your existing games and media will work in this new version. We felt it made much more sense to take the current product and enhance it in the areas where it is weak."

Lee spent a fair chunk of time in the early development phases just getting the original FPSC codebase to cooperate with newer Visual Studio editions and such. So, they definitely did start with the original FPSC base. Over time much of it wound up being rewritten often multiple times but never as a clean redo from scratch, just basically on top of the existing code and framework. The original anticipated release date of the final build of Reloaded was meant to be over three years ago (October 2013) and was to include a lot of features that we still don't have. In hindsight it appears the approach of reusing the old code was not the fastest route to produce the new product...

I'm just saying we were given the two options and everyone choose option B. So rather than building upon FPSC, we got what we have now. Which still to this date does not have some of the functions and "features" as FPSC. I just feel exhausted. I've waited a long time. FPSCx10 was a glimmer of hope and FPSC Reloaded was the second. But now we find ourselves in this dark unknown area. I'm been focusing a lot of my time on other endeavors since things here became stagnate.

I feel ya old timer. I agree with all of your points.
I'll stick around 'till a few months into 2017 personally and see what may or may not improve.



-Wolf

EDIT: wrote a whole lot of stuff, then deleted it as I really don't want to be negative.

I love this engine, but it seriously needs some core stuff worked on, AI, more LUA, graphics, lighting,

We are slowly losing veterans because the updates are not coming fast enough - if at all at least this year.

We live in hope, and on wishes...

Reliquia....

In my opinion there are two (and only two) absolutely required GG improvements.

1. Higher performance.
2. Lua commands for total access to the engine (to be able to get and set every internal variable).

I think 2 is easy (even trivial) to implement and will enable all types of further improvements, which will be worked out by the users.
As for 1 it may be a losing battle.

Gotta say that I am amazed that GG was even released with an AI engine that only works at ground level. But I am gobsmacked that it is still like that 5 years later. This product should have been finished by now. In the early days I was exited by the product and recommended it to a lot of people. As a modeller I have made models for other games engines and when you compare GG against programs like Rail Sim and even Leadworks engine its a chalk and cheese situation regarding development. The shaders are poor and very limited. The rendering is on occasions suspect. FPS is still not that good. Try getting a good few items on the screen and see it plummet. Even some of the included content is poor. Take some of the AIs. Their standing animations make them look like they are suffering from Parkinsons as they constantly jerk around. No offence.

Sadly I have to say I'm not convinced anymore that GG will ever be finished and I wouldn't be surprised if it was suddenly just dropped. Sorry Lee.

To be fair, that's nothing to do with the AI, or the engine, the animation set for the default models is very basic and low quality. That's not to say there aren't issues with AI, there is, but you cant blame bad animations on the engine.

Lee has just updated his thread ... We have the old terrain back ...YEEE !!

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216444

Im very amused how some people are not getting the point of this all. Be happy for random terrain? Really? after so many years project not finished but yes we thank for features that should be there 2 years ago. nice form of suggestion and manipulation. Be greatful for things that are not what we paid for. Waiting 3 years for final release ? What are 3 years! ...oh cmon give me a break...this project has already failed. I switch to Leadwerks already and Ive made what i wanted in couple of hours....you people who still believe this will ever be fully functional software wake up please i have waited long enough...you have dissapointed me in every aspect. And please stop lying to people. They invested lot of money to your project ...and till now PROMISES WERENT FULFILLED.

Is there any reason why he makes these updates as part of a post edit rather than a new post in the thread? Because there is absolutely no indication that there is a new update unless we specifically check in regularity to that specific post.

Upstairs,downstairs.AI.next step.would wake everything up.

Dave