Hi,
I have followed the Live sessions on a Wednesday, since... Well since they started and even though development is progressing well and I know they are a small team etc. But surely an announcement regarding what year or what quarter could be announced so that we do not keep getting the question - When will it be finished?

Even if a dev company announces a new IP today it states a future date to work to, even if that may be 2 years ahead. Surely the GameCreators who are taking money in good faith that it will eventually get finished should action this? What are the deadlines they are working to? are there any deadlines set? or is it just the case of "it will be done when it is done"

I think they owe it to the people who have pledged to give some indication even if this is not specific to a date.
Otherwise we are all just waiting with the odd carrot dangling in front of us just out of reach waiting for the next orange morsel...

By the time it is finished will it be so out of date and touch with FPS engines?

Your thoughts as always would be welcomed. Thanks

Not at all considering a 3rd party is developing the rendering engine called wicked engine and since this developments started the rendering engine got updated to the latest wicked engine version and in future max will be updated to the latest wicked engine version as we go along.

So by no means will it be outdated when it is officially released, bar the rendering engine of the wicked engine a lot of other none rendering features has made it into max as well. The benefit of not having to create an entire rendering engine your self is that you can devote time to other things which has been done so far with the gui and other things especially the terrain and grass system...


If I were to hazard a guess as to release date, likely around September - October.

No one has actually Pledged .. Its not a Kickstarter ( although i have plenty of those that i will never see )
Its just a Pre-Order with access to the Weekly builds. Follow the development and become involved.
Right now i think we would all agree that its not yet ready for public consumption even as an early access but still great fun to use and getting there a lot faster now
I personally am happy not to have a deadline.
An open release means no pressure which has always given us buggy features in the past but still very confident Max is on the right track.

Hi,
As you will see from the Live 16:00 GMT show today, TGC are not even giving us a year (2021/2022/2023) when the first version of the software will be available.

So TGC seem to have no deadlines or development schedule they are working to, or they are not willing to tell anyone...
Some may think this is fine and are happy to bob along until we eventually get a version 1.0, but answer this question will you be still happy this time next year with still no delivery date?

If I look at a pre-order of anything from a movie or a game to software you usually get a fulfilment date do you not?

an open release also gives room to be slack and possibly promote a lack of motivation, what could be achieved in 2021 fully functioning could be achieved in 2022 or 23 or the 12th of NEVER. the point is it is already 15 months since max came to slap us in the face.
wicked engine - written by someone else
physics engine - bullet/ written by someone else
VR -they had it working as they had the funding and made a complete programme from it
LUA - languge being used and most commands were written for GGjr
and the list continues
i know a lot has happened but the core fundamentals have not been in place and they don't give us an approx on a first release NOT even a year
you have strong faith one thing i actually dont have. im agnostic with this program i am athiest

Without faith i would not even be here.

The wicked engine is a great addition, however, it has its drawbacks, it is a software that is in the creation stage, therefore it is subject to constant changes, it is like trying to build a bridge and that they are constantly changing the course of the river, this It almost means having to start from scratch again and again, and although this is done to improve the software, it brings with it these inconveniences, such as knowing not even an approximate date of completion, and delivery of the work. imho.

I would also like to have an approximate date, and I fully understand the users who express it.

However, I prefer a well-crafted, well-oiled tool, free of major errors, fully functional, etc., and if to get it myself, and I'm just speaking for myself, I have to give the developers more time, I'm willing to do it.

I think Max has gone way off what was the intended release last year ( for the better )
So much more has been added than originally planned and so much more on the way. Its surprising how much you can do now really.

Whenever it gets released it will be fully functioning with no bugs.
Now that is something to look forward to.

Agreed @ Syncromesh. It seems we get little piddly weekly features, but they add up
to something pretty nifty and commendable overall. The Youtube / Steam reviews are
what TGC are anticipating and I really think it will sparkle.
However...
"Whenever it gets released it will be fully functioning with no bugs."
Weellll....... we optimists hope.
But I think the only way to test this (and the primary tests I'm thinking of) are the
stand-alones. But really only the public can adequately test this, it would just take
too much time in-house. So they do need to consider a "good-enough-for-now"
approach plan for version 0.9 to be released to the public jungle before they call
it perfectly FINISHED! 1001.0
I'm sure within months a list of bugs will be uncovered. Probably after terrain is well
established should be fine, unless there's other large system in early development?
Not to mention the need to test it on dozens of various system configurations...

All I can say is download, install, and try it!
The price is ridiculous cheap - so instead of going out for take-away this week, pre-order MAX and have fun seeing where t goes.

As said time and again the release date is open. This is so they can create a great product without having to rush it out the door.
From what I have seen TGC are serious about making MAX Great, and thus far it has been well worth the wait - imo - Take all the time you need Lee and Team.

And of course when released MAX will not be bug-free. No software is ever bug-free....

OldFlak....

Cant disagree with that.
You can do quite a lot already and its impressive to say the least but most of all .. Still great fun
Agreed there will always be bugs. Every engine has bugs. The best we can hope for is as Stable as possible at the time of release. Then new features will introduce new bugs to find. That's the way it goes.

If i had to make a guess on a release it would probably be late 21 early 22 but by that time the builds should be pretty awesome and hopefully functional enough for use to create some decent Gameplay even if its still not released

Honestly, I don't want to lose a feature, or incomplete features, or worse, features that don't work, for meeting a delivery date; I honestly think that getting a stable game engine that manages memory wisely is more of a priority for me than a deadline.

Speaking from the head, a new product is liable to require a delivery date by the customer.

Speaking from the heart, art and everything that has to do with it, should not be subject to schedules or delivery dates. imho.

I already know that the goal of the thread is the delivery date and not, what GGMax can or cannot do; but actually, it does have something to do with it, since the fact that there is no fixed delivery date is what will allow us to have a game engine very similar to the one that almost all of us want, so it would be a mistake to separate the two concepts. ihmo.

In the latest broadcast Lee seemed to suggest 2355.

"Its just a Pre-Order with access to the Weekly builds."

It's been quite a few months since I last downloaded it. Where can I find a link to the most recent weekly build?

@ Loktofeit

Go to Help>Check for updates

(Gameguru Max - When will it be complete?)

LOfreakingL

TGC taking their time is a good thing. We do not want another GG Classic, we want something written (mostly) from the ground up. With elements added at the appropriate times, no matter how boring they may seem. It may be frustrating for people champing on the bit to make a game, but believe me the end result should be FAR better with this sort of mentality on getting it designed and coded; otherwise we will be chasing the dragon for another 8 years!

Cutting corners and releasing early would be a disaster!

In my opinion what GG:Max still lacks is a concrete project roadmap and list of milestones for release. The entire premise of not setting realistic v1.0 goals and deadlines (even if variable) invites heavy scope creep. In which we may get new features that weren't anticipated, but it can also greatly add to the delay of initial release.

I also think the PR from TGC has not always been perfectly sincere. For example, the October 2020 newsletter (8 months ago) started out with:



I don't think anyone in the community who used the "Beta" from last October would consider it at a level that it could even be classified as beta, Lee acknowledged that himself as I recall. So I'm not sure why sugar coat it in the public updates about the product, and make it appear like the program was on the cusp of a stable release. I think many may have concerns of vaporware or perpetual development in which no clear end is in sight even for the initial release.

Since that time basically that version has been totally revamped from the ground up mostly due to Community feedback and is now considered Alpha again. There is an internal roadmap which is reviewed weekly by the team however roadmap or not nothing ever goes exactly to plan but right now it seems to be all coming together well. We get Weekly Live Streams, Weekly builds, Questions answered and a built in system for bug reporting and requests. If you compare Max now to the October 2020 version you mention its now a totally different product on a much higher quality level.

I think no one would disagree here, I was pleasantly surprised with most of the updates and stated on several occasions that this is for sure going into the right direction.
However, the users asking for a roadmap (even a high level one) have a point. The switch from "already pushed release date" to "Open end, it's done when it's done" happened half a year ago, it would be nice to rev up the communication game a bit and talk about the future with dates on the wall.

can they not give us this insight you have, with an approx roadmap, not definite dates as this gives TGC room to breath and delay. but i think many would feel a bit of comfort with a more structured plan of rough estimates like eg
2021 ui will be complete 50 percent of terrain will be complete
2022 ai and navigation and world settings complete 1st quarter
2022 lua and super ccreator completed 2nd quarter
2022 first release of version one aiming for December 2022. as an estimate please do not expect it may get delayed

this can also get updated in a living document thread so we get to not moan and can keep an eye on when we get near something

i will then not sit and wonder if terrain is coming this next broadcast to then see a few icons changed. that maybe progress but with no idea you can get a bit excited and then feel bummed out after, also no roadmap you get the same questions being answered over and over again . but when i know something is coming within that month like terrain or ai, i wont be moaning or give Snarky comments as i know whats coming Synchro.... lol, and will i stop fretting that it will be 10 years before it gets a release like classic.

problem is yes its the nature of the beast throwing cash at an idea to get it into fruition, but what happened with classic has me with doubts as track records speak volumes..
fpsc x10
gg classic
2 fails which i invested in although x10 was microsofts mess so really the longest drawn out engine build from 2012 till 2020 and then nowhere near what was imagined is gg classic
hoping its 5th time lucky as i had dbpro and fpsc. i do want to be proved wrong and it does hold a lot of promise but that happened with x10 and classic both fails for me anyway you can do things but basic. and so back to point. can they give us what you know as this seems to settle you and you know when its coming.

I went through Reloaded, which was never completed. Then it became Game Guru, but even then it wasn't complete. I'm not sure if GGC is even complete today. That covers 2014 to January 2020. My problem is; I'm 73. Not sure how long I have left to wait?

With release cycles and all that gameguru max will probably be my last version.I suspect lee has probably another version after max in him a. Wouldnt surprise me if he is closing in on 50 him self.

He's 102

if we're sat there waiting for max to be released we're in the wrong industry.. most of us already know a release date means nothing, Max is nowhere near ready and I'm sure TGC will be happy to provide an idea of when it will be "released" when they get near the point of it becoming ready.

yes, this is the nature of technology, though having Max built from the Wicked engine might mean it's more capable of evolving compared to TGCs own products - no hate, most of them are great stepping stones into the world they belong but they don't age well hence why there is always a need for a newer version.

Don't know if it's just my imagination... but its seems there is a huge speed increase when testing , since press the test button and in the actual game.

Anyone have seen this?

I get all the arguments about it is not ready yet, give them time, etc. And I really hope GG MAX turns out well. My Son loves building things in the vanilla version of GG and Max would be a great upgrade for him. I had actually forgotten I pre-ordered it back in February of 2020.

But there is a fact being overlooked here. The pre-order was originally promoted with a published full release date of September 2020. I wonder how many people would have pre-ordered if they knew that in reality, the release would take potentially years longer? The official post stating a 1st of September 2020 release is still published on the TGC website.

The release date was changed from September to December and was always going to be early access \ beta but was ONLY released to those Pre-Order Customers in December so they did get it.

However due to the feedback from those customers TGC decided to pretty much revamp it from scratch. What we have now compared to that released beta is far superior in every way.


Can you link me to that im not seeing it ?

Here you go:

https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/thegamecreators-announce-very-first-major-upgrade-to-their-gameguru-software-gameguru-max

WOW without your link i had to go back over 10 pages covering over 12 months of old news announcements to find that one
Its not exactly on the main Website which i assumed you meant here.
https://www.game-guru.com/max
Thanks and i will pass it on. Its a nice find but i really do not think an old archived News announcement over 12 months old counts as still advertised

I’m a great, huge fan of TGC and Game Guru.

However having a release date pegged to it will be ready when it’s ready is a total cop out to established users and those invested from early promises.

More time was obviously needed for the ambition no doubt. To leave everyone hanging with a ‘when we are finished we will let you know’ smacks of a vanity project that has no end in sight. I doubt this is the intention but is what comes across and is not professional.

Please state some dates and try and hit them. When is terrain - first workable version - expected?

What are other roadmap features and when are they expected? Not definite deliveries but planned alpha or even beta releases?

They must be there on some plan somewhere? If not then TGC are planning to fail.

If they are there let us know. Yes some people may moan if they are missed (not me) - honestly better to let people know and risk missing them than just rumble on with stock answer.

Build some excitement please . A roadmap will do that even if no absolute dates attached to it. Take your users on the journey with you - by showing where you are going and week by week how you gradually move towards it. Setbacks are fine when explained - not all updates have to be positive - some would be expected - problems will be hit but this is how we’re moving through them. Adds a richer dimension to the journey but also shows the end of the road goal.

Been here and done this many times. Your users are critical and you’re losing those who aren’t die hards.

Cheers.

There is an internal roadmap that is reviewed by the team on a weekly basis.
Weekly Builds, Weekly streams, questions and answers all available. Terrain going very well, Ai being worked on and loads more. Which part of the journey are you missing

The only real complaint is not seeing the roadmap TGC have set themselves. Maybe better that one moan than loads if they do not hit a target on the roadmap as you said yourself.


We lose users for many reasons even die hard ones. BOTR announced he has moved on but to be fair he has done that a few times and is due back any day
J\K

vague no anything given to us investors who have supported them.
Snarky comment meant if it is.

We are wanting some clarity Synchromesh any idea
What time frame to wait? . Not even a year is now given.
You threw they are working their butts off at me..
Ever worked in the health sector doing 60 hours a week on your feet? And in covid which i got doing my job.
So working butts off has different meanings im guessing . If they did inform us we would not be doing the same question over and over.. And we would realise they are working hard. So some map to the investors should not be hard surely?

The original release date was, unrealistic. Many of us mentioned it. We were thankfully either listened to, or TGC realised they could not release what they had in September last year at all. It's far from even close to complete even now.

Now I'm pretty patient in this regard. Not expecting greatness, but hoping for decent mediocrity. Otherwise need to move on to another engine. Or just back to AGK (which is pretty good to be honest)

I can understand people getting impatient of course. These days many people are in a mind of we want it and we want it now! But for those peeps, go to Unreal or Unity or Godot etc. The rest of us will be waiting for Max. The others will probably be back in time. There's always a payback for anything, easier to code, gonna be slower. No code at all? Gonna be super slow. What can you do?

I had an amazing analogy with buying a house and ggmax sadly my system was having major errors so will have to wait till i can be bothered again.
But i will get it out. Its dvader synchro and a Lot have missed the point we are trying to get out to you. The analogy will show a different context and from a professional side of business and the customer and the effects and the psychology of it all

If you are on the market for a new home and you find. New build house that will be ready to move into in September and so you buy and are excited by it and comes to September you have been packing and boxong and ready to go as nothing has been said to say its not happening
September arrives and the builder says its not ready yet and will take longer than anticipated but its close. You will be a bit disappointed and will wait a bit to the builder later near xmas to say do you want an extension built in with the price?
This sweetens the deal and you will obviously say yeah go on then. So you rent longer and live out of boxes a while longer. Till they ask you and other people in the new builds if they take longer are you happy to wait for us to finish it. Most say yes but some will reluctant say yes and some will say no and got back their money and obviously not happy with the promise that was not kept.
Now the money is already laid out and invested in the property but then after a while some people will wondwr when its going to be ready or even an approx date you can move in. The builder then says cant give you a move in date or even an approx the extension needs to be done carefully and needs lots of work. But i can show you a few lights that work or a small view of some ideas and some wallpaler you can use etc. This would annoy a lot of people has they are hangimg around.
They start to ask they want an idea of when they can move in as its been nearing a year? The builder and his mates say well if you dont want it you can go elsewhere and buy somewhere else
A lot of time is invested and money has been laid out. And the house looks brilliant and shows a lot of promise but they dont want to give anything at all when they think it may be finished. You look into past work they have done and the last house was 9 years to build amd they used a lot of the materials from that to build other houses amd even some in this new one. You surely dont wait 9 years to move in? The House shows immense promise and your dream home yet Your left in limbo really and people saying if you dont like it do one is not really good enough a reply is it?

And i think its not too much to ask for an approx release with disclaimers added to shut people up. The house analogy version 2 is a lot worse than my original one. But its close to it.
The other point

Thank you for your efforts. Huge respect for the NHS.
Its a good analogy and I am glad you brought it up as not all the team are full time and behind the scenes there are occasions when team members have to drop everything to run around after elderly parents ( as i do myself ) or go into work to cover someone else's shift who have had to self isolate so yes the current climate still effects everyone and like it or not plays havoc with any deadline.
So those that have stated lockdowns should have helped development etc i am sure you would be the first to personally agree its completely the opposite in most cases especially if you are waiting on others.

Listen i am a Nobody.
Whether TGC decide to give deadline details or show roadmap details is nothing to do with me but with the random things that are thrown at me in the real world now i could not tell you whether i will be here in an hour or not let alone will i have the garden done by the end of the month

Just to add to your builder and your house analogy.
LOL .,. Its a little overkill
Its more like " When will the telly i ordered be in stock "
We dont exactly know at the moment as they cannot give us an exact delivery date. But if you would rather not wait we can give you a refund.
which is a bit more of a realistic scenario and not so dramatic

Lol
Thank you for the reply.
Yes i can be dramatic but im really really really really really wantingnto be creative and even thpugh im dramatic a pain and snarky and total drainer. I love the tgc guys. I just am worried it will never be which is ridiculous but look at classic its kinda burned me.

Respect to anyone who has to looknafter anyone or as you say cover shifts it was horendous for mr last year i pretty much didnt have a day off or night inwas exhausted and wuit one job and started another job same health system different place.
Much better now.
Anyway like your analogy but i can dramatically dramatise your analogy.
Ifnyour waiting for the tv to arrive as england are playing the ukraine in quarter's at euro you be wanting a delivery time as you want to got to the pub or watch at home amd you dont want to miss the game but do you go out or wait and they dont give you a delivery time

Happy days

LOL .. The most unrealistic thing about my analogy is actually getting a refund from PC World for the telly i think

I think TGC have been battered so much now with Promise word they just do not want to let anyone down and if you really do not have an answer then better not to speculate i guess.
Having said that once we have the new terrain and some decent AI incorporated i think Lee will have a much clearer vision of a first release timeline and may well even ask the community if we feel its ready when the time comes. Lets face it we will know.

I personally think the next few months will see huge leaps and by the end of 2021 we could be close ( but that's just my opinion ) obviously Development will continue to add more stuff and improve what is already there just like any engine after release.

Just want to point out that this press release is still picked up as the #1 result when any user searches Google for Gameguru Max Launch/Release Date - including a huge heading on Google of the original planned release date.





So it's more than just someone drilling through 10 pages of announcements to try and nit pick. Most casually interested users would first check Google and glean information that way. But without a subsequent announcement offering any concrete date it is likely searches for this sort of information will continue to return old references instead based on how Google's algorithms parse data.

Guys, you both have stated that are there some sites still pointing to a deadline, obviously, this should be edited and linked to a well-explained post, talking about why there is not a deadline.
It is a truth that almost everyone here knows why there is not a deadline, but not the people out there, newcomers, and so on.

My thought and just my thought is that the question is not about the deadline, everybody around here knows that the GGMax we want to, is going to take a long time to be ready, so the question is:

I'm willing to wait till the GGMax being ready, even with not deadline?

Of course, I'm, are you? if does not, you always can wait till GGMax is ready, maybe TGC releases some demo to test it.
It would be nice you all coming to the community.

Oh i never tried that. Nice one
Although does it really matter ?
Its not released yet either way and does not change anything.
If anyone does look it up will soon realise its not been released yet. Best case scenario is that they may decide to Pre-Order and worst is they will not.

If it had been released last September it would have been utterly useless. It was a totally unrealistic time frame. Many of us said it at the time. TGC's bad really. At the minute what's is there is ok, but again it's nothing close to something we can make an actual game with.

There's plenty of alternatives out there to play with in the meantime. I'm sure if you pre-ordered and are totally unhappy with the time it is taking they will issue a refund.

I'd prefer to wait another 6-months or more than have it released in a state that will need TGC to mess about for another 9 years. Of course can't guarantee that either way. I just know it's easier to work on something when you can change stuff for the better, than to do so when it is released and peoples games are relying on compatibility.

Absolutely.
No problem there.