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Geek Culture / TGC out of buisness

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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 23rd Dec 2006 20:10 Edited at: 23rd Dec 2006 20:12
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Great... a bunch of kids using drag-n-drop will be created that have the nerve to call themselves "programmers".

It won't kill TGC... in fact it'll probably get more business when the drag-n-dropers grow up and want to really program.
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Chris K
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Posted: 23rd Dec 2006 20:21
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Well yeah, it 'supports' it in the same way VC++ 'supports' it.

ie. you have to write it from scratch yourself.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Jeku
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Posted: 23rd Dec 2006 22:28
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Quote: "Do you really have to have the membership to run stuff on your 360? Also, how do you connect your 360 to the computer?"


Yes you need a membership. I did the 4-month route to see if it was any good. So far I'm very pleased.

The 360 connects to your computer with a unique key generated from the 360, which you type into your GSE suite. This is how your two machines talk. Then you deploy your game on the 360 the same way you would with a Windows game-- just hit F5 It's great.

The game is then stored on the 360 to run anytime--- just make sure you put a proper exit button in your game or you'll have to Abort to the dashboard with the 360 home button (I've done that a few times myself )

Quote: "Great... a bunch of kids using drag-n-drop will be created that have the nerve to call themselves "programmers"."


This is perhaps the most ignorant comment posted in this thread Where is the drag and drop you are referring to? If you're referring to TGB, it's about as drag-and-drop as a level editor. EVERYTHING must be touched in code. It is NOTHING like FPSC or T3DGM. I don't know why everyone's getting up about this.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 23rd Dec 2006 23:14
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Ok, that car crash was pretty awesome!

I get Visual Studio among other MS software enterprise editions for free through my school, just got my new bundle this week actually.

I think XNA looks pretty decent actually, and I plan to take a hands-on look at it over winter break. (3 weeks no classes!)

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 05:17
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Quote: "It looks *rubbish*."

Agreed, as far as the drag & drop stuff goes. It's nothing new and not at all innovative.

Quote: "Why? If you're going to get a job in the game industry as a programmer, there is a good chance you will be using MS' VS.NET, and they've basically given us that for free, now. It used to cost hundreds of dollars. If anything, now is a *great* time to be in the indie market."

Not everyone who develops in the indie market wants to run off and work for a mainstream studio. Some of us make games casually, some of us do it as an added source of income, and some people even do it as their only source of income. But I simply don't see this being a threat to any of us, and it certainly doesn't pose any sort of threat to TGC. The only thing I'm worried about is watching a flock of talentless wannabe designers flood the marketplace and force those of us who actually *try* to make inspiring games to work even harder to earn consumer dollars... like, they might make crap games that lessen the opinion of high-quality indie games around them. And an even bigger problem I foresee... we'll have more people coming to us and saying "hey! I have this AWESOME idea for an mmorpg based on a mix between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings! But I can't make the models and stuff! Come work for me, I won't pay you but the idea is l33t!" Yeah, that's just what we need! Those are my favoritist e-mails ever!


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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indi
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 05:21
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time will tell the real outcome.

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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 07:33
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Quote: "Not everyone who develops in the indie market wants to run off and work for a mainstream studio."


Even indie's use VS.NET

Quote: "'m worried about is watching a flock of talentless wannabe designers flood the marketplace and force those of us who actually *try* to make inspiring games to work even harder to earn consumer dollars..."


Seeing as how XNA is considerable more complicated than the BASIC languages that are already available, I don't see this happening.

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Supremacy
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 09:52 Edited at: 24th Dec 2006 09:54
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So the conlcusion is that TGC wont be affect by XNA. Ok to that.

but...how long do you think it will take for us the see a widespread of xna powered games running ? And I mean the mainstream tripleA industry.


Jeku- whats your thing with Ben ? lol
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indi
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 10:03
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How about you download it and give it a try Supremacy.

Get back to us with your results.

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Chris K
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 12:11
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Hush hush, industry secret here... Lionhead's Tools team use C# now for everything, and basically want people to move over to XNA!

As in, the people making Fable 2.

There was an interview with Peter Molyneux in Develop (a British games development magazine) where he raved about XNA.

My view of it is that it is perfect, for me, but way, way, way worse than DBPro/Blitz/Gamemaker for first timers.

I think the confusion (and I think this confusion is among Microsoft as well), is whether they are aiming at indie games developers (as in amateurs, probably teenagers) or indie games developers as in, professional games developers who aren't signed with a studio.

I think it is the latter.

If you don't know C (or a variant) going into it, it won't be much help.

It will, however, make it possible for say, 4 friends who work at EA to break off for a year and see if they can make it on their own.

@Jeku

But what actually connection is there between the two? Does 360 come with a USB cable, or is it over the internet?

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Supremacy
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 13:05
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Quote: "How about you download it and give it a try Supremacy.

Get back to us with your results."


Ill try, but for now all the time I have is for the Nvidia Compo
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Antidote
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 13:43
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So I'm just curious, how similar is C# to say C++ or Java? I've taken actual year long classes in those and if it's close then I'll definitely take a look at it. However, I will not just abandon DB since it is easy to use, I'm in the middle of a competition, and I like that massive amounts of plug-ins available as well as the community that has formed here. I have always wanted to do a game in an OO environment and this sounds like the perfect way to start.


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John Y
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 13:50
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If you know Java, then you pretty much know C#. It is very similar, and you will pick up C# very quickly.

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Chris K
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 14:12
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C# is very like C++, from what I've seen, ie. C with Classes.

They seemed to have renamed/adjusted certain things... I heard the guy in the video calling what looked like a Template a 'Generic', but they appeared to work the same.

There are other structures like Functors which I don't really know about yet.

I think all the stuff it does could be done in C++, but more messily, with pointers to functions and the like (*spits*).

From scanning the code, it looks like C++ with Direct X, but clean.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Antidote
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 14:48
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Oh very nice. Yeah I once downloaded a C++ 3d engine named irrlicht. It had power but to call the most basic of functions you had lines like this



Needless to say that was over quickly.

I'll look in to C# when I have time. It looks promising and developing for the 360 could be really cool.


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Code Dragon
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 16:34 Edited at: 24th Dec 2006 16:36
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Quote: "they are aiming at indie games developers (as in amateurs, probably teenagers) or indie games developers as in, professional games developers"


Just out of curiosity, how many people here use DBP as a professional game development tool? I'm still an amateur, and I know not a whole lot of amateurs actually go professional, but a self-employed job as an indie game developer has such a big coolness value that many drag and drop people call themseleves it. I love games and game development, I understand it's not going to be as easy as drag and drop so I'm not going to give up on game dev anytime soon, no matter how hard it is. Within the next 10 years I'm betting many of the people using DBP as a hobby will be a successful game developer with a high traffic shareware website. When I get to that point I'll switch from DBP to C++ if neccessary, but I really hope DBP proves itself as a professional game development tool.

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David R
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 16:40 Edited at: 24th Dec 2006 16:48
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Quote: "There's a whole lot of crap extra you have to do to get a game running in C++, because C++ can do a lot more than games.
"


Yeah, not to mention the default CRT memory management is definitely not up to the copious amounts of allocations/de-allocations that tend to occur in games

And writing your own memory management (without a lot of time and effort) is like stabbing yourself in the foot.... unless you like chasing leaks and corruptions full-time

EDIT:


would be more like



You'd then get a node to play around with. That's one thing I love with C++ 3d engines / Irrlicht - you can load a 3d object once, and effectively instance it across multiple (visible) nodes hundreds of times without reloading the object

EDIT2:
Quote: "Lionhead's Tools team use C# now for everything,"


It appears they've been doing that for a while now - even before XNA; When I did the BIO last year (sponsored by LH) there was lot's of talk about C# in the BIO because LH was apparently using it loads. It's also one of their big requirements for hiring new coders, or in the words of LH's job page:

Quote: "- Strong C# ideally, though ability to apply current OO skills to a new language is possibly sufficient. "


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Chris K
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:09
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I did the BIO when I was at school, did pretty well on it, then my teacher realised it he was meant to have done it a week ago

Obviously I hadn't got the answers off anybody, but there's no way to prove that.

I didn't really like C# when I first tried it out, but I'm starting to really like the look of it.

My only worry is that it just doesn't have the mettle to run an actually full whack next gen game. This is obviously completely moot with respect to XNA, but in terms of it being taken on as an industry standard, I think C++'s speed will edge it.

Then again, is it acutally that much slower than C++? And didn't people say that about C vs. C++ anyway?

Meh I don't know.

XNA let's you make games for a state of the art console, that's all that matters.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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David R
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:17
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Am I correct by saying that C# runs under the Common Language Runtime? (Like managed C++ and VB.NET etc.) ?

If so, it is a lot slower - I mean, I assume it is, because even a managed C++ app I've been working on is noticeably slower compared to its native counterpart (The managed app is being used as a level editor with a nice UI, and the native app is the actual game). The main performance hit seems to be during start-up rather than during usage, so that's not much of an issue - but still, that would suggest that C# as a whole is slower than C++/Native code - but like you, I'm not entirely sure

But then again, with processors getting stupidly fast, the speed impact is going to be much less noticeable - at least from a games point of view.

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Zotoaster
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:29
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What does XNA stand for?

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Chris K
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:32 Edited at: 24th Dec 2006 17:35
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It's hilariously, recursively acronymed:

XNA's not acronymed.

-----------

There's a pair of Linux thingies that are mutually recursively acronymed. I'll just try and find them...

Got it:

"Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons," and "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth."

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
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Supremacy
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:40
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Quote: "Am I correct by saying that C# runs under the Common Language Runtime?"


not sure but i think not, although would like to know the awnser to.

Quote: "XNA's not anacronymed."
cool
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John Y
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:41 Edited at: 24th Dec 2006 17:43
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Remember, when the .Net framework or JVM start up, they are doing two things.

1). Analyse and compile your program for the processor - hence Just In Time Compilation
2). Load the libraries that your application depend on (this stage is skipped with the KVM as every library is already in it's loaded state).

Once the .Net framework or JVM have initialised everything should run as fast as native compiled programs, perhaps faster due to mulithreading.

Quote: "Am I correct by saying that C# runs under the Common Language Runtime? (Like managed C++ and VB.NET etc.) ? "


Yes, of course

In the last 10 years we have seen Java, VB and C# emerge as powerful and popular languages. All running under some sort of VM, it's definately the future.

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David R
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 17:56
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Quote: "Once the .Net framework or JVM have initialised everything should run as fast as native compiled programs, perhaps faster due to mulithreading"


It may be just a debugging mechanism, which I'm sure it is, but when I debug a managed application, certain components aren't loaded until they are actually used (like some form functions when you do an 'OpenDialog') is this a normal thing, or just strange behaviour under the debugger? Whatever causes it, creates a real performance hit, that's for sure (but of course it is negligible due to it being debugged)

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John Y
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 18:01
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In some cases the Managed functions are just wrapped API calls, when your doing OpenDialog it's calling the Window API for you. But in a nicer way than the C++ method

Get the new DarkBasic Professional IDE for only $19.99/~£9.85
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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 20:16
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Quote: "Jeku- whats your thing with Ben ? lol"


I really respect his Christmas message and thought I'd share it here

Quote: "But what actually connection is there between the two? Does 360 come with a USB cable, or is it over the internet?"


As long as your computer and your 360 are both hooked up to your home network (i.e. plugged into a router) then they should be able to talk to each other.

Quote: "My only worry is that it just doesn't have the mettle to run an actually full whack next gen game. "


Well, I believe it can handle almost anything you throw at it, what with modern processors and video cards as powerful as they are. Gears of War? Maybe not. But as an independent developer, XNA and C# is probably as fast as you can get while not being pure C++. It's still pretty freakin' fast

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dab
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 21:55 Edited at: 25th Dec 2006 05:11
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Well, for anyone wondering, according to the faq by microsoft, you can sell the things made by the express editions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/faq/

Quote: "Can I use Express Editions for commercial use?
Yes, there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using the Express Editions."



Although, XNA is different:
Edit: Forgot link - http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/
Quote: "Q: Can I use the XNA Game Studio Express or XNA Framework to build a commercial Xbox 360 game? A: XNA Game Studio Express lets you create Windows and now Xbox 360 console games much more easily. These games are limited to non-commercial scenarios for 360 titles created with XNA Game Studio Express. However, XNA Game Studio Express may be used to create commercial games which target Windows. We plan to release XNA Game Studio Professional next year which will allow developers to create commercial games for the Xbox 360 in addition to Windows. "


So from what I understand, you can sell the PC games, but not for the XBOX 360. because all they talk about is the XBOX games not being sold.

Take heed, never take advantage of the things you need, never let your self be overcome by greed. Walk a strigh line, pick up your speed and try. Everyone deserves a piece of the pie By: Shaggy
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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 24th Dec 2006 22:46
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Quote: "This is perhaps the most ignorant comment posted in this thread"


Well it's bound to happen sometime.

Quote: "Where is the drag and drop you are referring to? If you're referring to TGB, it's about as drag-and-drop as a level editor. EVERYTHING must be touched in code. It is NOTHING like FPSC or T3DGM. I don't know why everyone's getting up about this."


I assumed there was drag-n-drop because the guys in the video used those words every chance they could get. I haven't experienced it myself and probably won't because I'm loyal to Playstation.

Can we see a small code snip from one of these games?
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VR2
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Posted: 25th Dec 2006 05:01
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Regarding the speed issue, I remember Tom Miller (the original architect of Managed DirectX, the latest version of which is at the heart of XNA) saying that MDX 1 was somewhere in the region of 95% to 98% of the speed of native DirectX.

However, this can be taken with a pinch of salt because although the DirectX calls themselves may be almost on par with C++ in terms of speed, there is alot more than that to making a game.

Having said that, with Generics in place now (Templates to the C++ gurus?) I'm given to understand that alot of the speed issues that did affect C#, in a gaming sense, namely those surrounding the boxing & unboxing of local variables to and from the managed heap, would be largely overcome by the use of Generics.

I've read many times in various sources that top dev houses are often using C# and Managed DirectX (XNA now I guess) to write toolsets etc, but have not really embraced the technology for full games. *Possibly* that may change now but if it does start to happen, it's surely gonna be a heck of a sea change to an industry that has been C++ focused for so long! Also it would surely propell C# to be one of the most popular programming languages ever? I say that as it would then *commonly* (as in almost a first choice) be used for:

Games (XNA Studio and Framework)
Web (ASP.NET)
Web Services (ASP.NET)
Desktop (WinForms & .NET Framework)
Mobile Dev (Compact Framework)
Database (SQL Server objects written in C#)

Previously only Java had a good handle on all these areas (although I don't know of any database objects written in Java?) and C++ is rarely used for web development.

I think this could be a very interesting turn of events indeed.
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Supremacy
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Posted: 25th Dec 2006 11:01
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t's surely gonna be a heck of a sea change to an industry that has been C++ focused for so long! Also it would surely propell C# to be one of the most popular programming languages ever?

Exactly !!! And think about it, maybe 5 years from now, any indepedent game developer can use the same tools (XNA) has the big fish, little garage studios will be set on fire !

Now imagine a simple scripted engine, with the power of XNA, ence why i said "TGC out of buisness"

Because it all comes to simplicity and power/fame, most of you know about blitz or have tried blitz right ?

now imagine that 99% of all games out there where coded in blitz, and they even worked on xbox, would you guys still be reading this or where you searching in google for the blitz homepage ?
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indi
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Posted: 25th Dec 2006 12:29
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Suggesting that TGC will go out of business is foolish to say the least.
It doesnt look upon your character or fervor in a good light with other members.
Its a an irrational statement by a passionate young programmer.

If you like XNA, please by all means go and use it, show us what you can do with it etc.. before jumping to conclusions based on unfounded material and data.
Its ok to discuss about other products but there is a limit.

take care.

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Supremacy
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Posted: 25th Dec 2006 13:28 Edited at: 25th Dec 2006 13:28
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I wont say another word about it, i guess democracy, unfortunatly, always stops at some point right...Even if it is at moderators point lol (joking)
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indi
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Posted: 25th Dec 2006 14:17
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joke too much and you will end up the joker. Hiding your opinion behind a joke serves no purpose, Im way too old to see through the smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, your passionate about XNA, Id like to see what you do with it in the future.
If you do go ahead and live by your ideal, it would be interesting to see what you develop,
Everyone here has goals and ambitions to make games or to code or to make models etc..
Passion is cool, negativity towards either languages or people can be left at the door.

What kind of games are you interested in developing?
Do you think you will buy the $99 a year package?
will you port your games to the XB360?

Democracy is a great ideal, however its not the end all be all of a perfect utopia.
There is no perfect system, we all have to toe the line, and live within a constraint the majority of people you consider peers, who set ground rules for us all.

It would be great to see how you progress with XNA, perhaps you could be the conduit between DB and XNA if you spend enough time evaluating both languages.
That would be a niche marketplace within the gaming industry.

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