Hi All,

Here is a recording of the live broadcast we hosted this Wednesday:


And here are the answers I could not get to live from the live chat questions:

Q> Can I change my folder from 'My Documents' we need to set custom storage space and not tie it too My Docs?
A> This will be in the SETTINGS panel as many users will have larger storage on their other drives, and GameGuru may have a lot of game assets down the road.

Q> GameGuru Vulcan, DX12, or both?
A> We are using DirectX 11 for GameGuru MAX. We have the option of switching to Vulcan and DX12 thanks to the Wicked Engine but we are not taking that plunge until we are finished with our first release. There are no guarantee moving to these API versions will increase performance.

Thanks for all your questions and I look forward to answering more next week!

Wow, grouping is a MUST-HAVE feature imo, I'm really glad to see there's some plans to get it in the software. Especially useful for RPG games I'd imagine.

Wow, Script-Spawning Entities is a MUST-HAVE feature imo, and no game engine can be taken seriously without it. Sounds like Lee rejected that idea for a grouping system in the map editor? IDK I'm confused.
Scripters are not important here?

Brilliant stream Lee and a possible build on Friday

Many people on the Max discord are saying do not include the ability to build standalone games until v1.0 is finished otherwise people may try to publish games on Steam with an unfinished game engine.

Also I am thinking it might be a good idea if you disable the option to build games unless the user is connected online to the TGC servers to help prevent the software from being pirated.

can someone tell me where the tiny installer is located?

It has not been released yet ..
When it has it will be in your TGC account.
As long as your a Pre-Order Customer.

Grouping is a very useful feature, but what's about a copy & paste group? is it in the roadmap?

synchromesh, Thank you for the info. Yes I am a preorder Cust.

In the video, Lee indicates how that would be done in MAX. Via the Current Object tab, when you select several objects in the viewport, you can choose to group them, ungroup them, and edit the group. Then, whenever you select that group, you can simply dragn-n-drop it from the Current Object tab into the viewport and place it.

@ Argent_Arts
Thanks a lot, mate for the input , English is not my first lang, so often I don't get the whole point when talking.
I rely on visuals, so I thought this was just for place entities easily.

This looks very good, grouping entities and saving them as a prefab is going to be a huge +

I agree. However, I hope it functions just a bit differently than Lee seemed to indicate it would. The Current Object tab only shows what you've got selected in the viewport (or so it seems). I'd like to create a prefab, save it, and then be able to use it even if it's not in use in the current level I am working on. I don't want to have to recreate the prefab in the viewport for each level, so to speak. And I don't want to have to find it in the viewport at the opposite end of the level, to have to select it there to get it into the Current Object tab, and then move all the way back to where I need to place it just to place it. Instead, I'd like to be able to save "groups" (or prefabs) as their own entities that can be used over and over again in any level and in any project.

Yes agree, need some sort of prefab library , fpsc had it

grouping looks solid.

Clearly the UI redesign has been a massive success.

Everyone asked for a more stable Max and thats exactly what we're getting.

How about some props for the Max team everyone.

Lee did mention saving your group so you could load in another project ..
Hes already on the ball with that one

Hello everyone!
It seems that nobody heard me the last time I asked on this forum ...
Can you add paysafecard to buy the engine on your website?
Yes or no???
I think Steam uses it, why not add ???

This question has been answered several times including the Video above at around 12:15 mins into it which was the first question Lee answered. There are no plans to add this payment method to the the TGC Website.
Steam use it i believe but that has nothing to do with TGC. That is something Steam have added.
Steam Payment Methods are nothing to do with TGC.

why would you allow game compile for a very unstable very basic product.
It could open a world of upset if these compiles go on steam for sale as complete games.
I would suggest to hold Off build Game until You get to the official release or a more completed engine far too early.

you dont sell half cooked chicken at a restaurant

Maybe its obvious to TGC that developers releasing unfinished games isn't TGC's problem? It doesnt have to reflect poorly on them, they're not the ones releasing the games.

I guess possibly. But then if i see something or buy a game that is riddled with bugs and no real elements complete and thats hardly got any game play. if i saw it had ggmax attached to it. i would totally stay away from anything from that product.

As to why you want to make a game at this early stage. It is not in my eyes the needed part at present I think more game world and the logic is a priority if im honest

But i may be wrong

You best have a word with my local KFC then
J/K

I agree reviews of standalones would only make Max look bad before its even been released.
Thats my main issue with it.

Stand alone should NOT be available until MAX is finished (or as close as).

Definitely this would open the engine up to a new world of possibilities. A massive shame TGC appear to have already dismissed it.

Yeah, I tend to agree. There have been some REALLY bad games made in Unity (barely modified from the included template games) and sold on Steam, and yet nobody goes around claiming Unity is the worst game engine ever. At the end of the day, you can't stop people from making and releasing crap games, but who cares, really?

@Nomad



I hope not! As of this last week I have had nothing. but problems with BT my Internet provider with down time and outages. I am not the only one either. What happens if an outage happens through extreme weather conditions and lasts months. I would be out of pocket if I was using this software for a commercial purpose. Also some parts of the world still have difficulty getting good internet today. Even in the UK.

I would defo be getting a refund if this was to happen!

Edited for typo.

Your talking of a game engine that has been around for ages and has many games under its belt and has millions of man hours under its belt. that product has established itself as a game maker.

Game guru max is not even remotely near finished. Comparing the 2 is actually like saying. hey lets take our car to top gear and show off our new car with half an engine and no extras like indicators dash board extras. that has no proof of quality yet. But dont worry audi had a few blips along the way. Why would you want to make a game and sell it now when the engine isn't even close to finished. its just extremely bad business and setting the engine up to fail.
Because in business the reputation is paramount to gain customers. It will be extremely bad press.

You wont stop these games I agree but putting it out for them before the product has any bells or whistles is suicide. But its up to them.

I do care i put money into this engine followed and supported for years and i want to make a decent game with the new product and good business means more money and more extras and a more complete engine and quicker if they can afford more staff to work on it. this requires money and steam over run with exceptionally crap no gameplay games off ggmax is going to turn off a lot of customers off.

Tgc made a lame product last time out it had a lot of potential but 8 years on and no funds left and silly people thinking they own companies helped ruin the original product by all asking for Ebe or laptop able fps, lower fps so the laptop boys could run basic games. The thing is this took up a year trying to get laptop frames up and at the cost of high end pcs. many learning curves also time amd money and tgc have to take responsibility for their part. there was so Much more wrong in the engine they spent half a year On an ebe engine this was however due to the experts getting. Vote and they made Poor priority choices or should I say the voting feature killed it. Due to all this it has failed really. And i think expensive on tgc and on our side too as we are paying for it. It i hope was something they have learnt from reflecting is a good thing however alowing games to be made at this time is like jumping in shark infested waters and throwing in a bucket of chomp and splashing around.

however a new engine with new funds.
And i do hope they have learnt from the previous product and most of the dilemmas of 8 years prior should make this better and quicker

Most engines, Unity, Unreal are online use only.
To be able to use Max offline would be a more unique than anything.

@ Synchromesh

Unity can be used and activated in offline mode see here https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ManualActivationGuide.html . Online is more for the asset library. Also these are AAA game making engines based on a royalty model for the free versions. Not sure of Unreal licensing model. These have had many years of successful games being made with them.

I only know that a god game makers don't plan to publish a game made with GGMax right now with the alpha/beta version.

Not so. Both Unity and Unreal can easily be used off-line. S2, Skyline, etc. ... all used offline. So, nope. This is just not true.

Ok then that being the case im wrong but it wasnt when i used it a few years back

I don't really have a problem with the standalone being added, primarily because of the issues i had with GG's standalone creator, so for me its good to have early to test to see if it has any issues e.g models not copying over etc, also there isn't as yet tons of people who actually have max to try and make a game so to speak. Yeah if needed put a splash on it, but we definitely need to test it and make sure it works. Other than that nice one Lee and team looks good so far

Give a man a fish... and they eat your gift that same day.
Teach a man to fish... and they eat their own effort whenever they are hungry!
...then they can feed others.

///
Give someone GG, and they ... ? [choices--sell your fish or develop with it?]

Fantastic video Lee, yes I agree No Standalone yet... looking forward to the next beta on Friday.

There is an overwhelming majority to remove standalone from the build at the moment.

I hope it can also be updated to include some kind of additional authentication in the future too. Users should only be able to build a game if they have authenticated themselves somehow.

Maybe add a login for Max so you have to actually login to the software to create a built game

Technically, users "authenticate" themselves when they purchase the software to use it. Adding some layer of additional authentication only adds another layer to the software that could potentially cause issues (for a variety of reasons) for legitimately licensed users. Meanwhile, crackers will remove the authentication requirements from the program and the ones who use illegal versions will actually end up with a more hassle-free version of the software than legally licensed users. Hackers will always be able to crack a piece of software. The harder it is, the more likely they are to tackle it just to gain fame as the one(s) who were able to get through the software's defenses. Meanwhile, some poor user on the other end of the world, where the internet is not as stable as in other areas, is struggling to get his licensed version authenticated to create a stand-alone because his shoddy internet is not allowing him to get authenticated.

Please, no. A legally licensed user should not have to do that to create their game. I have a 3D modeling software I've used in the past. I paid close to $500 for the yearly license to use it each year. It requires an internet connection to authenticate my license. It's been a pain in the backside since day one and the forum for the software has several posts about the problems with their licensing. There have been issues on there end at times, issues with end-users internet, and issues that no one seems to be able to account for. And when these issues crop up, the software sometimes can become unusable for some people. One guy had an emergency project handed to him and the darned software would not authenticate. As a result, he spent most of the time dealing with tech support for the software instead of working on the project. He almost lost the contract as a result ... and to no fault of his own. This particular company is huge, too. Not some two or three man team.

So, no. I would definitely vote against being forced to login to create a game that I've labored over.

If i remember right, both of them can be used in offline mode, one you just have to sign into once and then you can use it offline, the other has a tick box in settings to allow you to use it offline.

Max is now TGC's flagship piece of software so i hope they can add some good security.
It seemed to me like locking out the build game feature would be the least intrusive and the most effective.

?

Logins-- no, never. No more names and passwords to keep track of!
No need for all that. Sounds like we are trying to emulate Facegoop and oogley Googley. I forgo most software that requires them. It's a little bit weird that this is our primary concern at the moment. But I guess if there are core features never established, that is to be expected.

Lee should open up MAX features as much as possible utilizing Wicked engine, expanding the developer functions (Spawn via Script! ), etc. There are these guys who are quite capable of producing nifty, notable games. That's the key to getting out of the GGjr reputation. Just the visual capabilities alone should help boost MAX reputation as a viable contender. Then Legitimate Reviews from gaming enthusiasts (Youtube) on the -MAX ENGINE-, not fish-flips will debunk MAX as a toy.

For assets... if only TGC charged a DLC price for map and asset additions instead of all the included free maps and assets that GG came with. But then again, come to think of it, anyone could get that old stuff from GG @ $5.99 TGC sale!

I am not totally agree regarding do not allow the user to generate autoexec files. I think it is good to let the user use that function in the alpha release, then the user could also inform about any issue o bug in that process. I suggest only to generate the game including a text in the screen that said: "Generated with the alpha o beta version of GGM" or something similar. I think could be enough, the comunity could be able to report bugs and noone could be afraid about the performance of the product.

I really don't see the need for limiting features just because the engine isn't ready yet. Let it be, let it be. Users are free to try and export finished games, I don't see the problem with that. It's cool that people can figure out a reason why TGC should code a feature out just because the engine is in beta, but that's extra work just to enforce a needless and picky rule.

TGC is not responsible for an artist creating a standalone during GG Max's early stages. Does it matter if people share unfinished games? Are you thinking about TGC's public relations or marketing or something? I think it's a nice idea to take a deep breath and let this be haha.

I do not understand asking TGC to put work in to remove a feature temporarily just because we could erroneously feel developers will represent TGC poorly by sharing an alpha or beta game.
But it just takes a few seconds to remember that creators who use GG aren't employees of TGC and their creations are in no way representative of TGC.

I guess TGC will make their own decision here. I think they don't need to police this kind of thing, it's like straightening books on a bookshelf. Not important.

I could well be wrong here (and probably am), but since MAX is hardly near completed (i.e. many, many completely missing or incomplete features) would it be possible to "break" the stand-alone exporter as things get fixed/completed/added? In other words, just because it might work now in the next beta release, could it break further down the line due to additions/corrections made to the whole? And, if so, since stand-alone game export is the last step in game creation, then shouldn't the exporter start to show up much later down the line in MAX development?

I'm not comparing the two engines. I'm saying that it's possible to create a crap game with any engine -- and indeed people do!

I think your mistake comes from thinking that people who buy a game on Steam are buying it because they want to see how good the game engine is that was used to make the game! Anyone who is even remotely interested in making games is not going to base their decision on a crap game they downloaded from Steam. They'll do their homework, conduct some research, and then decide whether it's right for them or not. Even a crap game made with Max might be better than no game, because someone might say "GG Max, never heard of it, let's take a look. Ohh ok, it's not finished yet, but wow, it really looks easy to use so maybe I'll come on board and see what it can really do."

Worrying about who can publish standalone games and suchlike is just counterproductive. GG is a tool for making games. If you want to create some exclusive club that gets to decide when and who is allowed to publish games, then forget it. I'm out.

Your pretty spot on.
Standalone would probably just give unstable results at the moment anyway with so much missing.
Why make more work, just hold out until its further ahead.

How to enclose/fit code with something then does that not exist yet.
Stuff should be first done and fully-functional, then we can think about how to fit it all together in one standalone file, so now is the time to make it, till then standalone will be just an incomplete feature like many others, and the last on the todo list. imho.

Thanks (@synchromesh and 3com). That's what I was thinking, too (obviously). There really seems to be little reason for MAX to have a "functioning" stand-alone exporter at this stage and many, many reasons for it not to.

swift-au

Actually you did compare. Why did you bring up unity at all? its a totally different situation. Totally.
Also ggmax will be a game maker its not released so its not yet. And im not dictating im voicing concern as are you. counterproductive well not really is it. Im discussing and it was a topic for discussion on here. So is this entire thread counter productive?

The game making part i agreed with. its possible to always make a crap game. But your mistake is thinking your right. It's opinion and both sides have reasons. Mine is experience of the product and how it unfolded and 12 years with them and investing time. And money. yours is your reasons.

Exclusive club. what are you talking about?
Im thinking and voicing from a long term angle, for everyone and i dont understand why you want to build now?
You cant really make a game with it yet and actually launching the software with a build now is futile. Unless your going to sell on steam next week why would you actually need it. You can hobby and do games just minus a full build whats the problem?. But if that is how you feel then thats your opinion and i respect you have one. As to saying your done sounds like your throwing your rattle out the pram. Have a little patience and let them sort the engine out then when it can make stable good games then they can churn out what they want as can you. good games take time to create plan and make so by later on this year im sure the build function would be in and then all can release their games. If it comes. Out thats up to them i personally and a few others here think its a mistake. Theres no conspiracy or gang or elite persons club just people like. Yourself wantimg a good game Maker and a More Finished one Is better than one. You camt do anything with

No offence meant and happy days