This is an interesting topic with some valid points being made from both angles.

Although new to Game Studio i can relate to what people here are saying. They clearly have time-frames set up for the development of this update, and possibly need to be more public regarding their progress towards the community. The good folks here in the forum are all (hopefully) paying customers, most of which have projects running themselves which will potentially be affected by this update. The price for upgrading (although very reasonable) can be a big investment for small software companies / freelancers.

I myself am sat thinking... shall i wait before i upgrade my A6 or go ahead and buy risking the chance that A7 could be released soon.

I'm guessing Conitec are to offer existing customers the opportunity of a very reasonable upgrade price?

A blog isn't really an option but would be really nice. Just a few words... "today we're gonna attempt this...", "damn it didn't work! We'll try again tomorrow". It bonds a community. Who knows, maybe somebody within the community has the knowledge to solve problems Conitec experience.

I dunno, i'm just a newbie.
M

I guess the big question is, when A7 comes out, will the A6 users have to pay full price to convert over? Or will we gat an upgrade price?

If it's just a matter of an upgrade, get the A6 now and don't worry about A7... A7 is still a ways away, and procrastination won't get any project started or finished.

And if it's a matter of having to buy A7 new (no upgrade) get A6 now and dont worry about A7, it's still a ways away.

Jason

You can get A6 and make something. Good games (not AAA best) possible with, it's art, not engine.
Or You can wait for A7, then A8, ... and never produce any product.
But, I agree. Conitec has to review pricing policy for existing users.

This question has been answered before. If A7 will come out soon, say within 6 months, the users will be notified, In that time if anybody buys A6 they will get an auto upgrade. If you have bought A6 before that time you will not. The reason for the autoupgrade for that time period is so people will still buy edditions and not wait and possibly forget about buying a copy.

(NOTE: JCL is out this week, or I would let him answer this thread. Remember: Doug == Conitec_Employee and does not speak for the entire company.)

This is still the first and last word on the next major update.

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Currently there is no information on future updates of the 3DGameStudio license. When this information becomes available, it will be posted here and clearly announced.

Until that time Conitec and its employees will not speculate nor answer any questions, in private or public, related to "A7" release dates, feature sets, compatibility issues, cost, upgrade options, or even when this information will be made public.

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So I "will not speculate nor answer any questions" on a product that doesn't exist yet. But I have a couple of questions for you.

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Conitec has to review pricing policy for existing users.

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Are you are talking about our pricing policy for a product we haven't even announced yet? We can't review something that doesn't exist. Once we announce a product then we can have a logical discussion on its price.

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lack of *direct* communication with Conitec

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About a future update, maybe. But this is by choice (and legal reasons I can't talk about). But please consider:
Doug (developer support): 7908 posts
Marco (sr. developer): 2838 posts
JCL (head developer): 12068 posts!

We have been very good at direct communication about our current project and beta developments (in the beta test group). And we plan to continue this trend as new products are released.

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When a team of people are working on a project, and they come to a point where they REALLY need feature X, Y and Z, but the package they are using only has Z...well, they kinda need to know an approximate time frame for when to expect X and Y.

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No, they need to rethink their design. There is a clear list of features included in the current release so, unless X and Y are on that list, they shouldn't expect them.

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"Developers Blog"

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This is something I've thought about, but we really can't tell you anything in a blog that we couldn't just announce here on the forum. But I'll see what I can do on being more communicative on what I'm working on.

While that's a good theory, and it works for most companies, I'd most definitly be wary of it with regards to Conitec. Why? Because we have *no* idea when it's comming out, and it's been YEARS since A6 was new. People would be, IMO, "unwise" to purchase A6 now simply because there is absolutely no indication of even the *year* in which A7 is going to be released...and, seeing as it's been YEARS since A6 has been out, it is very possible that someone buying now will have to pay for the upgrade to A7 because it won't come out for 7 months+.

No, if I wasn't already a user of A6, I'd definitly look seriously at other options. Actually, I have looked elseware; there are some pretty nice engines out there...many free, some waaaay cheaper than A6 Pro (and those include modern goodies like BSP or Portal or Octree or some other rendering type, normal maps, soft shadows, etc.). The most recent engine I bought was the C4 Engine(I own 3; A6, Torque and C4). It has some nice rendering and you get full source code, updates for life, and AWESOME customer support from Eric. It's still 'in the works', but man, it's potential is about on par with where the Offset Engine was when it started.

Anyway, I like A6. I like it's ease of use. I like how it "thinks" (sans MED; never did like it). I do NOT like how far behind the times it is, and how we have been kept (more or less) in the dark about the next release date.

It's been years? Its been a year. Wait another 6 months and maybe it will be out. Rome wasn't built in a day ya know.

The 6.31 update was released on Nov 18, 2004. This is Jun 21, 2006 over 19 months. Add in the time from the 6.11 and 6.22 updates being available, it's quite likely to be "years". By definition, "years" means more than one year. Just the span of 6.31 is already enough for this claim as that's 1.5 years.

I'm talking since 6.0 was released. It's gotta be more than 2 years I'm sure...

I like this point that Lion_Ts made:

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You can get A6 and make something. Good games (not AAA best) possible with, it's art, not engine.
Or You can wait for A7, then A8, ... and never produce any product.

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I agree, there are other engines out there somewhat ahead of conitecs A6, but I say use what you got, get the most of it, and when that next update comes, you'll be ready to either port your project to newer features, or I bet you'll already have your next big title lined up with those new features in mind.

The point I am trying to make is pretty much the same as Lion_Ts, putting yourself in mind frame that you have to have all those great features or you just can't get anything done, isn't worth it, and will get you no where. I myself have been guilty of wasting countless hours, days, months looking for that perfect solution to all my coding problems, when what I should have been doing is rolling up my sleeves and grinding it out with what I got.

Anyway not to get too far off topic, I would say I trust Conitec to be working as fast and as hard as they can(because they are a small team) making the engine everything it should be, so I would rather them keep me informed on the update page, but to not take away from development time detailing each days work.

my 2 cents

-raiden