Quote: "I think TGC do just fine. No, they aren't perfect, but who the hell is? Please spare us this tone. Running pretend businesses does not make you an expert."
I don't run a pretend business.
Actually quite successful out-sourced media, trying to save up enough to change to a developer. While doing this I'm working on the products in my freetime to hit the ground running.
Quote: "The bottom line is this:
Are they a bad idea? No.
Are they a good idea? Probably.
Should they be added? Doesn't matter.
Will they be added? No."
Why? I think the forums and website, are both testiments to TGC products in general. A PM System is quite a good idea, they should be added; but there is a high chance they won't be.
Seriously, what is a few hours.. if that out of Rich's time to do them for a feature that I firmly believe would be quite well used?
I mean think about it, what exactly is a PM? It's just private threads between users. How bloody difficult would they be to impliment?! Hell I'm not that great at php or webdev in general and I was still able to knock up a forum with fair similar features to this one in under a day. It took Rich a year to get the original apollo forum up, then it was taken down after 2days saying it wasn't going to take long to replace; ended up taking another 6months and we lost alot of the features it did have. It was like being back in BBS days with prettier graphics.
As far as I'm conserned if there is something I can do programming wise, especially with web-development; then a professional at it should be able to do something far better and quicker!
It's like Rich has always been doing TGC stuff in his freetime only! This is something that really irritates me. If I was at a company saying I'd do something within a week then take 6months to do it; I can guarentee you, that I'd be fired long before I complete the work.
Quote: "Is it because TGC are a bad at business or lazy? No."
They're not bad, or necessarily lazy. In-fact they do work quite hard on the products they develop, however this really is part of the problem.
They do work hard, not smart. Look at when they released DGDK, it was at the 2year lifetime of DarkBASIC Professional. This gave them the best oppertunity to move to DarkBASIC v3, rebuild everything from the ground up based on what they had learnt with focus on seperating the engine and compiler so the engine could be used in middleware while also being available for their language.
Instead, they just cleaned up the engine; made it MSVC 2003 compatible and released. Then left it for months(years) before updating properly.
To me that is neither smart, or really taking the better route.
Hell they've focused on FPSCreator, which has taken their lead programmer away from the DBP X9 Engine; to work on technology that very few people can use (or use at a reasonable speed) without expensive hardware. They've missed deadlines to boot.
Something even their marketing director has poked some fun at recently. Which is cool they can laugh about it, but really if you're going to produce more than one peice of software at once, you MUST expand your company to handle it. This isn't really the case with TGC, yes they have some new people in; but they focus still on the product they're working on rather than diversifying resources.
I mean I guess it is cool they're working exclusively on really a single project.. but then again they're not are they. X10 + FPSC X10.. which they've still not got some decent beta testers in for.
They used the community last time for beta testing, then expanded this with Early Adopter; but it didn't help the product as most of the beta testers barely used it. A few told me they just didn't like it, which is grand and all but did TGC know they didn't like or bother using it?! Certainly never heard anything come through support to that effect. Which makes beta testing between useless and pointless.
A while back I actually suggested some projects, that if they were done in the right order; would right now leave TGC in a very powerful position conserning their finances to expand their product line. They're slowly becoming a publisher, as well as developer.. if they just expanded this area of themselves properly they could really do well as a casual game publisher that also could reflect well on their own products and other development products (like Realm Crafter 2 they've just gained the rights to publish digitally) through a single focused secure delivery system.
They are popular now with LOTS of people, and are worth the funding to have it developed. I was shot down 2 years ago when I proposed the concept, idea and app.. somehow I doubt anything would change.
I could say more about things users here don't know abot going on behind the scenes, but frankly I can see the same pattern emerging that happened when DBP was released. Sure, this keeps them in business; but at the same time it also means business is fairly stagnent until they release a big money maker like 3D Game Maker was.
As far as hiring a new web admin/developer.. I'd say YES, it is an absolute must. The main website needs to be toned down, redeveloped to show this company IS professional in what it does, and not cause misrepresentation with bending of facts just to gloss over what are actually good products but will be haunted by claims that quite frankly don't live up to what they are!
The forum also needs to be better integrated with the site, along with a better purchase & delivery system. The system feels old, as does the website. TGC has to change their appearance to the consumers if they want to pull in the crowds to expand their userbase that XNA can despite it's difficulty to use.
Hell, if I'd been listened to 2 years ago; right now you'd be able to use DBP on both Windows and Xbox 360, and could've been the first to market with a product capable of such as well as live sharing of secure source. What is a bigger market to you, hobbyists; or xbox/windows arcade live casual gamers looking to make a game.
Somehow I doubt TGC right now reaches 6million users, which is what Live offers. A few hired community members to create games to show off the potencial of the darkbasic professional engine; ALSO would be a huge boost to not only moral but others going "hey, that's what it can do?!"
Publishing of games again, would open up another market that would bring in crowds from other development communities.
They need things that not only they can boast about, but also are hands on for people to see what is possible not just what they claim is.
It's about appearance on every level not just technical.
Quote: "By the way, when is Callsign due out again? I hear you broke your own NDA on that one, being the developer and all that."
Changing some core technologies in it, mainly the universe creation. Quite a major overhaul of it, but squeezing more speed out as well as some more depth from the procedural generation.
Technology is in there to allow planetfall or even underwater aspects from craft to player level, but going to keep away from it until Series 2.
So should make the persistant universe more interesting for a while. Although do have the cube-construction system working nicely now; so can build it from a grid system, but doesn't look like it is. Showing the fruits of that labour on my blog for the moment, as going to release that first as an FPSCreator rival.
Hopefully, it's not going to slip from the release that we're aiming towards. There's a closed beta due to start within the next month, which I'm looking forward to seeing reactions.
