The future

Is 3d Gamestudio really planning a future? I'm just really posting thisbecause i'm sad about this!
You have UDK and UNITY and this engine could have been better... Istead it let the users do all the work... This is not looking at a future... this is letting something that was once upon a time awsome letting it die slowly, wich is a painfull dead :\ This engine don't deserve it! Operators! PLEASE! Do something about it...

Best regard,
Mythran

the 'the future' subforum is dead (kinda ironic), you'll have to ask in the ask-the-devs subforum to get a reply to that.

But don't expect a clear statement, jcl is not going to promise you anything and will most likely just evade the question by giving you an inaccurate answer.

anyway, good luck there, we're all hoping for some good news (it doesn't look very promising, though)

The future is killed by this guy:

Hey you Guys,

I been a GameStudio user since A5 and seen many changes to the engine and the community.

For the last year or two I have been working with Unity for 3D and lately with Game Maker Studio Pro for 2D games.

I'm not going to say GameStudio is a bad engine, because it's not. When you get involved with a project you have to choose which engine/toolkit is working best for you and not just this or that shiny feature nobody else currently has.

Though, I have to admit that I would never recommend A8 engine for anything serious. And that involves investor money.

But, if you need to quickly prototype your idea or like to play with certain features or create small projects and for general learning it is a great tool.

I have been watching the forums many times to see what's up and this year only 1 update. Think it is bad. I don't get what JCL is doing with Zorro. First I thought it was a joke or some kind of pyramid scheme. But it actually seems serious and that makes it even more weird.

The last time we had to wait for engine updates and better import/level tools, it was because Conitec was creating some kind of game for someone they didn't even knew or something.

That was the day I bought Unity3D engine instead of A8 Pro update. I really want to support GameStudio. I will always be a fan too. But, I will not be waiting for Conitec.

And now this Zorro. I mean. WTH JCL? This was even weirder for me than the time I saw the letters "ATARI" in the engine window. I wouldnt name my sailboat the Titanic either. Unless I expect it to sink.

So, not bashing GameStudio. It still is a great product. And respect to the developers who actually created a real game with this engine. You will not be forgotten.

A9 should have no longer a mediocre commercial version but everything the professional version offers with a reasonable price. Or a commercial edition with extensions. Most important for Conitec would be to focus on the future and the devices we use today like smartphones, ipads, mac, linux touchscreens.

I would not purchase A8 pro with what other engines offer today. But from the lack of response on the forum and the activity on Zorro. I believe the GS community is left on its own.

The engine is stil great. And you can play with it. Even create games and simulations or prototypes without to much touble. But community seems quiet.

The way things stand, all those who bought A8 have been robbed of their updates and money. It has gotten beyond a joke now.
Not even any news on what is going on?
This is why i suggested to make the Beta forum read only to those outside the beta, so one can at least have an inkling of what is going on.
It is this complete lack of communication that has caused most people to look elsewhere, and it is really a BIG disgrace.
I really do not know if there is going to be an A9, and if there is, WHO is going to buy it?
In reality, all A8 owners should get A9 free, yes you heard me, free, but i fear even that would not be enough to convince users to stay with conitec, unless A9 is something that blows everything else out of the water, which again is something that won't happen, when one looks at the last 3 years of updates.
So it looks like Gamestudio is DEAD, but it has not realised it yet and is still ghosting around on the plane where life exists.
So if you find a copy of Gamestudio on your PC and you know you removed it, well that is the ghost of Gamestudio, it has not realised it has passed on, and is desperately clinging on.

Somebody (hello mods) move this thread to the 'ask the devs' section already... these guys (including me) can complain as much as they want, the devs won't see it.

the sad thing is the new WED seemed to be a good decision to sigh new life into the engine, but it was announced 3 years ago, and since May 2013 no news about it (still stays on 75%). missing its release could lead to the current bad state... but you have there MapBuilder Editor too! but the missing updates and bug-fixes is a pain and means a high risk to start a new project (I have been brave enough to do it).

imo the pro edition is still a capable engine, and the commercial is fine for smaller scale games, but definitely very overpriced with the current editor set, in spite of its flexibility.

"This is why i suggested to make the Beta forum read only to those outside the beta, so one can at least have an inkling of what is going on."

In it's current state, making the Beta forum read only would provide NO NEW information. The only two posts in the last SIX MONTHS there are entitled:

- Next Beta Release Date?
- Beta Status?

You have to go back to November of 2013 to find the last beta release (v8.45).

JCL has been doing this for how long? When did 3dgamestudio release its first version? Mid 1990's? So... 20 years. I think the guy is just fed up with the same old. C-script is the best part about game studio hands down. I honestly don't think the engine will get the graphics/features it deserves until conitec decides to sell off the engine (if it ever came down to that). Or if somebody takes the SDK and heavily modifies the engine, kinda like what valve did with the quake engine for half life.

No, I'm not fed up, but I have to admit that the last update was in Spring and there have been not much news since then. There is no way to sugar-coat it: we're occupied with other tasks at the moment. But Gamestudio is alive and will get new features as soon as human development resources are available again.

amen

It's encouraging to hear it's alive, at least I hope your other tasks are fruitful, and we see more in GS again!

Seeing as you read this JCL and says its alive (it is nice to read you read this ); I agree with what Catsup said "Most important for Conitec would be to focus on the future and the devices we use today like smartphones, ipads, mac, linux touchscreens.".

Gamestudio 3D is never going to compete with e.g. the latest Unreal engine in terms of AAA graphics, but it doesn't need to if Gamestudio 3D builds upon its strengths (flexibility and accessibility). Mobile support strengthes flexibility.

Am I the only one who doesn't care THAT much about cross-platform and mobile support?
For me it's more important that Acknex is flexible and highly customizeable.

But yeah.. I still enjoy using acknex and it is good to hear that it's still alive.

Cross-platform and mobile support (slobber)
Especially mobile... The money you can make with that... (slobber)
And yes, you can make real money with mobilegames. The games were you make money with are free-to-play (with content you can buy for real money).
After making and publishing 10 simple games like this:
Simple game
One or two will probably be more or less "successful" (200-500 players), and you make a few hundred a month.
The same goes for normal app (I tried it).

Beside that, I will finally be able to make my own rpgs with the acknex engine for mobile devices! Classic RPGs made with acknex!!

I really don't care at all for mobile ports/ versions of acknex. Instead I'd like to have a solid, robust, somewhat modern and comfortably usable (-> new WED) PC game studio.
Mac and Linux support obviously is a huge plus and IMO the sensible and right thing to pursue from an engine or game developer's point of view (I can however understand the decision to make a fee-based mobile version from a businessman's perspective).

If mobile was available soon I would upgrade to the latest version. Otherwise I have no reason to leave A7.

@Superku, I agree with Linux and Mac support too. Cause that will improve flexibility too. But seriously, the mobile market is a big market! Think about this for a second;
IGN mobile review "Superku, the greatest mobile game ever created. Even better than games of EA and Activision who give us money for a positive review"

ps: I was searching for linux support and found this from Quad that sums up nice that Android, Linux and Mac support go well together:

I disagree with the whole mobile segment thing - note though that it's only my opinion. I think it would have been a good idea to develop a mobile game maybe 3 years ago when no one, esp. the big studios, noticed how much money you could make in that sector. Nowadays from what I heard it's pretty much impossible to sell more than a handful of copies (if any) there because of the sheer amount and flood of titles. No matter how cool your indie game is it can and most likely will get buried below a magnitude of titles of big name studios and other indie games which got a lot of coverage.
The PC market is a different one, there you don't need to reach the masses of players of which some may spend a cent or two on your product (how would you reach them as a hobby dev with pretty much no marketing budget?), instead you have a crowd of partially passionate gamers who actively research indie games, gamers who are not afraid to spend real money (up to 20 bucks) on your game, youtube channels and individuals which can give you vital coverage and after all there's Steam with 100 million active gamer accounts.

So the plans are okay, only the time frame is a bit too long.

I mean new WED and Android are selected well long-long ago as targets:
- today you cannot really sell a game engine with a more than 10-year-old editor set, even if the engine itself is great (and so easily usable by hobbyists like lite-c/acknex);
- 3DGS is heavily targeting beginners and hobbyists making casual games, thus Android is a correct platform for them today.

But other engines offer frequently new set of features for similar price (beside much better marketing!), enforcing users to buy it again and again (Unity), or stepping into the subscription way (Unreal), which also requires a fast and continuous development (UE4 soon features DX12), so simply it is hard to compete without intensive development beside the current features and licensing/pricing conditions...

@Superku, I understand your point of view, but there is 2 points I want to add:

- its not only mobiles, but also tablets (while games are flooding there too, there are chances to get some profit).
- its not only about selling stuff on the mobile/tablet market, its also about just making fun games on mobiles and tablets and messing around on the system.

Though, I don't really mind which comes first, linux, mac, android support. There are all nice to have. But I would prefer if it will come before the new WED since I have a feeling that will still take tons of time (especially counting Conitec time).

-edit, also I agree with what sivan mentions.

Yes, I'd like to mess around with tablet games and similar too, don't get me wrong, but I don't see it as a preferable target platform over desktop computers for aforementioned reasons.
The plus of Linux and Mac support is that you can (more or less) easily deploy your PC game on three other platforms as well while you'd have to develop separate games for tablet/ mobile and PC (and everyone knows how hard it is to develop a game for a single platform).

+1 The user experience is the same on Mac and Linux, so it feels like a waste for a Windows game not to be available to those audiences.

Regarding the mobile support I also think acknex is too inefficient to be used for anything except very simplistic games.

Let's just switch to Unity, everyone.

Forget about Unity Gamestudio gives Birth to a new level of a modern gameengine. :3 Hopely

Let's help them, turn Gamestudio into a Monster that destroys Worlds with no mercy!

Do you know what's the real problem?
People want to do some clicks and see a result - a commercial styled game.
But this is far far away from reality. Gamestudio offers everything (except a good Level Editor) what you need for developing a game.
There are good Java libaries for developing mobile games - libgdx for example. I wouldn't miss this feature.
Debugging is a mess but I am still comfortable with Gamestudio. I need just a new WED or a patched GED.

Assembler also offers absolutely everything you need to develop a game.

I still prefer lite-c, cause I haven't any programming skills and I don't need those skills for 3D GS.

What makes Lite-C difficult are the differences to C. If you're used to C, those tiny little things make you cringe.

When it was announced DX11 would not be supported, I worried that it was the beginning of the end.

Unfortunately IMO, there dosen't seem to have ever been enough developers working on 3DGS full time to compete with the other engines. Its evolution has been way to little, to late. Alas, JCL has stated that currently 3dgs is not even a primary focus for the developer(s). A8 to A9 has been the longest interval in the engines revision (over four years), and still no A9 in sight.

3D Gamestudio began as "Animation Construction Kit 3D" in 1993, the same year "Doom" came out. With the DOS based kit you could create "wolfenstien type game levels. The engines executable is still named "Acknex", for "Animation Construction Kit NEXt (generation)". And after 21 years, it is still a kit somewhat. This is fine and may appeal to some, but it is not a product that will bring in the capital needed to continue its viability in todays game engine marketplace.

I really wish things where different as I've always been a fan.

Let`s use "Malbolge" fpr A8! Then we can fall into despair together!

hopely there will be an update this year
Im thinking about spending some money in an version update... the last one.

Don't worry. I talked with jcl a while ago. He is working on it, with reasonable features.
Have faith, let's support him alittle. He is human, not an overlord superpower alien like me ^^

How can we support him? The betaphase of A8 was 2 years long
Everything is said

HA-HA-HA-HA.
Foolish human, like this:
3dgs support

OMG im lazughing so HARD jes!

I Thought i´ll bring this thread to the year 2015 !

This is something most people including me wants to know,.Whats the future for A-engine? althought am not a user anymore and without android i would never spend money on this engine,i have to say i look minimun once a month in these forums.. Personally i think the same as catsup,gamestudio is a nice engine to quickly build prototypes,to lern if you are a beginner to 3d and so on but for professional work is not suited.

This type of engines should have made the step to the mobile,as that allow simple hobby user to make some cash with little games,even just for the motivation factor and being part of a growing sector! and it would attract many people to buy the software meaning more money for conitec and more life for the engine.
But Conitec missed all those points,even if they transport it now,WED still need a change and it would be always years behind of other engines.

Its of corse the lack of money and it is very unknown if Conitec spend on android and do get that money back. From a business eye perspective i wouldnt recommend investing on acknex if you are not going to bring it at least to the technology of 2012



I had used gamestudio long ago,i began about 2002 with 16years to experiment with Darkbasic,Blitzbasic and gamestudio from sybex. i even bought genesis3d and GameMaker2000(What a crap!),now am 30years and it seems GS wasted all those years.
I have to say what i never expected happened,blitz died before DarkBASIC and gamestudio,really strong from GS to stay alive althought its way overpriced for itsfeatures.

-I think conitec should rethink its price for the pro engine.
-Target android,as thats the market for indie-developers.
-A new WED in the style of unity

Last but not least,Gamestudio is a finished engine,WYSIWYG,but dont wait for conitec as you have only one life!

@NIN_AATCHB:
I don't get why everyone thinks android support is the best thing in the world...
Yes, there are people who made a shitload of money through selling crappy mobile games but an engine that supports operating systems like android or ios doesn't magically make you rich.

And if android is your target platform just use an engine that's desinged for android, not one that's ported.

I personally use andengine , free and pretty much easy to learn for a starter..

the most annoying thing is all the downloads and updates you have to get , and setting everything up correctly for example with eclipse ,basically just the several separate parts that forms a complete android developing package is what is annoying , but when you have that in order , its pretty easy to develop for Android from there on forward .

even having this now , doesn't help much until I come up with something unique , it's unbelievable how fast android development exploded and produced so much of every common idea already possible , the gap for unique ideas closed like thunder and lightning .

I guess its the whole "gonna be much easier" with gamestudio idea, that everyone wants ?

I would love an easier solution , java is not my cup of coffee ;-)

but I don't know , how would gamestudio approach android for beginners .

there are engines where it seems to be solved, using a high level abstraction so you need only to select target platform(s), only the android SDK should be installed separately, however I have no experience in it...
originally I planned development only for pc, but since tablets are getting powerful enough, I will definitely check android development possibilities in future, especially because I'm currently simplifying my game concepts, thus a much lower memory and less complex user interface would be enough... e.g. Creative Assembly is making their mobile version of Total War with Unity3D, and the current wip videos look cool. but my minister of finance prefers UE4 over Unity somehow...

It's funny, there is a big hype currently about the popular cross-platform game dev tool GameMaker Studio: the creator (YoYo games) has been recently acquired for $16.4 million by an online gambling software company (Playtech).

They have over 750,000 registered game developers, and everyone is now talking about long-term concerns..

There is a quote on Gamasutra that got my attention:


and:


It is funny, because this engine and it's users are really.. BIG. Big tech, big user base, big possibilities.. and big money compared to what happens here, we are just peanuts. A8 is just a peanut. Even JCL is a peanut.

In my plans for A7ITUDE (which is still under development, yes), I changed my plans for target audience and target platforms a lot, and what is clear, is that I want to develop for PC and not mobile, and I want to reach out on Windows, Mac and Linux.. so it is inevitable to switch at some time.

First I was flirting with jMonkey (for JAVA reasons), then I flirted with GDX (also JAVA, but a strong 2D feature set as well and better exporting features), and now I am heavily considering Godot Engine. I am also searching an engine with integrated shadow mapping support that just works... Unity is too expensive for me.

Godot is developed by Okam Studio - a game dev studio actively developing games for PC and console - and it is open source. It is really developing well and gaining ground, and it is is open source.

I think that is a smart move... you are developing actively games and you are developing (or "sponsoring") the engine in an open source fashion, with people actually paid for this - and you get feedback from the real world, you even gain new features without paying.

I do not suggest that JCL should make the same moves, but what is striking me is that there are no moves at all.

I am also unsure if the Android exporter will be the holy grail to the engine, because a lot of other features and tools are missing as well..

[EDIT]

Here are some URLs for the aroused minds:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/236574/GameMaker_Studio_creator_acquired_for_164_million.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/23667...erm_concern.php
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20150217/236674/Game_Maker_Security_and_Freedom.php
http://okamstudio.com/
http://www.godotengine.org/wp/

Android exporter is not a holy grail, but if gamestudio would have mac, linux and android support it would make the engine alot more valuable. Many problems/obstacles can be solved one way or the other and even things like map editors (to mostly replace WED) can be made (/are made) by users. Support for android etc. however can't, right?

Next to that, on the frontpage of gamestudio is mentioned that it is also used on several schools (or was used). I could see an android exporter being valuable for that too.

At the end of the day what matters in my opinion most is a clear Roadmap and Vision to stick to. Given the Information that one can extract from jcl's posts, it does not sound like we're still having an 5 (or more) persons team working on the engine and tools, so manpower is precious. Taking that into account, I doubt we'll see 3DGS support various plattforms at any time soon (again - guessing), but if existing labor is spend wisely upgrading and renovating tool by tool, there's maybe a realistic chance for 3DGS to find and/or stay in its niche. And being good in a certain niche can be profitable as well, Galep is a good example on that

Just (@JCL) do yourself and 3DGS its reputation a favor and put some money into a current Webpage. That does not mean to spend 10k amounts on it, but the current page clearly undersells. If you need support on it, drop me a message