I'm fully agree with JustSid! And A8 needs to be much better than all its competitors! And yes, unity gives shaders for free, even if its really hard to make some shaders yourself. To use even some basic shaders in game studio you need to buy commercial version at least... I'm not designer or modelier, even if I can make some models and I can draw very well, I don't like to spent a lot of time with making models and so on. I really like to programm (even if my knowledge isn't really good enough, I'm still learning), but to make a good game, you need really some good looking models and textures... And making levels with WED is just kind of bull shit... And I'm pretty sure, every one knows this. As well as game studio textures and models are old as hell!! And nothing much changed since A6! The main change is Lite-c... And yes, there are templates to make some games without programming... But projects made with them, looks really ridiculous...even if you'll spent more than 200 dollars for models and more than 200 dollars for textures...

Edit: And could you show me some really great tools, that come with even commercial version? Most of the useful tools are made by engine users! Even still, if some newbie want to start learning anything about pathfinding, they will find some not fully working examples from AUM (the only one that works with the latest A7 and LITE-C, is the one from AUM 64, but till you get it working with multiple bots, you'll have heart attack!), not supported at the moment IntenceX (I heard that there some sort of bugs with game studio, don't know are they fixed...), some other examples from enging users (can be found on Wiki), but is there any good looking pathfinding that comes with game studio? Where is the example, that will show me the whole power of engine?! It doesn't exist... But still, I'm not changing engine, I've started with GS, and I'm still working with it... May be I'm to lazy to start learning something new from the very beginning, I don't know. But I know a lot of GS users, that changed engine to an other one...

That my friend, is completely bullshit.
I am not a Unity fan boy, its just the engine i like to use recently (and i'm open to many other engines, i've tried and used a lot without complaining about it, and i would use other engines if i feel like it's better to achieve games in it (like TGB)).
But why do you think the programming sucks in Unity3D? I am a programmer myself and i enjoy it so much programming in C# with Unity, there are (almost) no limits, you can use almost every system library and do whatever you want. And if it's not enough/working, you can write a dll and include it.

Prototyping is just so damn fast in it as well, i have so many small projects i've started for myself (beside all the commercial stuff i've already did thanks to unity).

NOTE: I am NOT comparing Unity vs A8 here, i don't know A8, i don't know A7, but i loved A6 as well.

So yeah please get more information before ranting about products (and using it for a short while doesn't really count) and keep your pessimism out of topics like this so people can actually take it serious.

i don't think they are exceptions. i admit that i didn't do a thorough search but the biggest indie hits of the recent years that i quickly found all used their own engines (often a combination of several open source libraries). to me this kind of questions tools like gamestudio and unity. this shows that to be successful you first of all need to be a "indie programmer" and not an artist with nice ideas and tools that claim that you don't need to be much of a programmer.

(Ratchet, this is a thread for you!)
Thanks JustSid i appreciate.
Critics are the only way to evolve ! even lot more in real life ! if nobody never critcs you you can't evolve and stay at same leve all yiour life !


Well i presume it's my thread on Iphone games where i talked about A8. Don't forget i stated well that the team making
the game with Unreal engine on Iphone would do as good and even more better if we told all their very skilled 3D artists
to use A8 indeed

For all the rest of engines talks Machinery_Frank have resumed very well all that.

A8 is used by programmers mainly, Unity by 3D artists mainly
and Iphone game makers !
Even that resumes very well these two engines that target
different people and projects.

JustSid :
Use Unity indie also , try their tutorials, i'm sure you'll find some fun
I like a lot A8, i don't use actually Unity free version for my current project and i use ..... A8 !!!!
But if i switch to some more advanced grahical game , i will switch to Unity !

Critics on A8 can only boost the engine even more on tools and workflow, if all people say A8 is prefect ....
ok let it be what it is with programming features only ... ?
Critics are needed to make things move like in life !


Everyone should choose what really brings fun to them , or what engine they really need !



In real life, i have people that make critics on me, that's hard to hear, but sometimes so true, finally it helps me changing my closed mind and open it !


Everyone should critic their prefered 3D engine to make it even better !

Interesting you say that. My game is pretty simple and could easily be done in Unity (gameplay-wise). Visually that would be an effort and a half. I'd use Unity to make my game so that I had a wider audience (most of my friends are non-gamers and so don't know any better than to own a Mac , so they can't try my game even though they want to just to see what I do), but I want my game to look nice (part me being a graphics whore, and part me taking pride as a shader programmer), so I stick with A8 even though it'll only work on Windows.

To me it's like this:
Unity effort to use industry-standard effects:
--|
A8 effort to use industry-standard effects:
--------|
A8 effort to use gorgeous, application-specific effects:
-----------|
Unity effort to use gorgeous, application-specific effects:
---------------------------|

Jibb

But you see, they also use libraries and premade functions
to get the stuff working.

An engine is just a compilation of several methods into a
bigger package. But if you know the architecture, its better
to only "outsource" part of the code, such as rendering (OpenGL interfaces),
sound, input libraries etc.

--

You can also make a great game using a very restricted engine,
that has all sets of tools and structures,
but then its called a Mod. (like the game Nehrim based on Oblivion)

So the more freedom you need, the more you can
move down the ladder of predefined functionality.

Gamestudio for example encloses too many things (resource formats, rendering procedures) from direct access and modification.
Thus its not a good choice for a bigger team, that
can rely on experienced programmers.
For them its better to use some libraries, and set up
their own engine.

its still funny to see (even more serious) attemts
to use gamestudios build in multiplayer functions.
its the type of stuff you dont touch, but make your
own implementation. (which ultimately gives the reason for
dlls to take over that job)

Its similar to using an engine that only allows integer math,
and building a workaround to simulate floating point calculations.
..instead of using floating point calculation directly.

You can also make a great game using a very restricted engine,
that has all sets of tools and structures,
but then its called a Mod
I agree making mods is also another solution.
But unity really let you do the game you want, its' not predifined, you can script anything !

For programming features, i admit A8 is perhaps better ??And if you have a solid programing team, any engine
more programming oriented A8 , ogre 3D or other engine will do the job !

But for the lonewolf wanting to do a game, that want to manage as simple as possible ressources, and apply basic shaders as fast and simple as possible as possible , well
A8 is not the best in that domain indeed

But i use A8, and for me that's really ok for my current project ! So it really depends on your needs , and your skills !
In fact i would want to say :
Use two or more engines, try to make things with them !
Then decide depending on your goal and money or if you have simply fun with it what is the best to use in that moment !

And don't forget to critic A8
I remember during the A6 days , the engine stayed one year and more without updates, critics on forums have changed things ! Today, they are very often betas even if little or only code oriented !
Critics bring better things !

Programming wise best use A8 as DLL and do everything in C++ or C# via the C# wrapper.

Lite-C has some nice extra features which are very handy, but also annoying limitations which you usually don't notice... but never ever try to port some heavily runtime optimized unreadable spaghetticode to Lite-C. Believe me - it's a waste of time.
I got it to work - partly... then I gave up and compiled the original source as DLL. Worked right away.

Lite-C indeed has some bigger issues - and once you run into these problems you are stuck with ancient debugging methods.

"I said at the very beginning that everyone looks at your graphic and that you have to deliver good graphics. But thats only the half, your gameplay needs also to be good!"

In my opinion it is the direct opposite at least at an Indie level
Put it this way
Commercial software houses normally enmployes 2 / 3 artist oriented people and 1 / 3 programming oriented guys
The reason is that graphics ia more time consuming than programming but it would be a mistake to assume that it is also the most important stuff

Lets take a 12 people team with 9 artist and 3 programmers
Useless to say that the reality is more diversified but it is just a rough example
You are a lonly wolf , good artist and good peogrammer and you want to compete with this team+
What would you do ?
Maybe you dedicate 2 / 3 of your time to graphics and 1 / 3 to programming ?
A bloody mistake

You are 1 vs 9 on artistic side , you will never win
Better to fight on the game play side
Here you are 1 vs 3 a little better

This is what the succesfull Indie designers do

Indie games graphics is normally rather poor but their game play sometime is great

In other words it is a strategy based on a simple benefit / cost analysis

The main problem about A8 is not the engine itself, but the tools that look like they were developed 10 years ago. I love the engine, its a joy to code with it - but hell, everything about it just screams OUTDATED. WED is propably the shittiest map editor ever; GED is just a lame excuse. Looking at tools like Unity, its not hard to see why those other engines have a better reputation - they just look and feel better, no matter what coding power they got. Oh, and they are able to export to iPhone and co, so a huge plus for indie developers.