...DevMaster reviews..

[Naughty Alien]

..i have just finished reading all reviews from Devmaster, related to LE..i mean..i just dont understand, why some people writing so wrong things about something, that they obviously dont know?? I mean, look at guy 'Chillingham' over there .. i was really objective and trying to understand source of his informations, but i really couldnt find any sane or proper source of informations what will guide me to make such statements as he did..he claim engine is poor?? I mean, what does it mean poor? I see it here, running on 7600GT at 25 FPS and chewing 250K polys with 38 characters moving around..is that guy ever tried Bmax to claim such really wrong statements, i mean, only thingy i saw faster on tests performed, than Bmax was C++ and difference was minor..what is his base for claim that there is no commercial games in dev..heck, i know 3 guys here working on commercial game, and me myself, running final cycle on hidden Dawn and already designing new game(3d pnc adventure)..im really wondering, why people writing such nonsense ? is it personal or something?? I just dont understand..im wondering what you think about it folks, but be objective, really..

[macklebee]

you will find no reasoning in some of those trolls' statements, NA... why some of them do it I cannot say... and a lot of the things they complain about were based on versions so old that make no sense... and the rest is just blatant lies. I see the complaints that some have with LE is superficial at best. LE is not going to be for everyone and just like any other engine out there, it has its own limitations. But to make personal attacks against Josh and purposefully troll the devmaster posting garbage is just truly sad.

[Michael Betke]

I think they just failed doing something with the engine and then write its the engines or Joshs fault and not their own.

 

It's easy to write something is **** if you don't understand it. I never got used to Vray and its bunch of settings so it's **** and any renderer I manage is cool, lol.

[Pancakes]

Well there was a time when I was extremely unsatisfied also. This was about a year and a half ago I think. The reason I was unsatisfied is because, frankly, Josh's ability to support non programmers was poorer back then. He has improved on that a lot. The reason I say it was poor is two reasons:

 

1. This is a silly reason but it still was a psychological one. He named his Editor "Sandbox" right around the time Crysis Sandbox had recently been released. Yet he had a completely 180 degree difference in design philosophy of the editor. Which to me, was misleading because of the fact there are 100 game engines out there and I simply missed the oppurtunity to get clarity about what direction the editor was going to go in before pressing the purchase button. I had done a ton of research on game engines then, but somehow I didn't get around to asking that one super important question. At the time, seeing engines like Blender, Blade, and CryEngine 2, which were very powerful and also very friendly to non programmers, I felt like "wtf, this editor is from the stone age" That thought may make a programmer cringe, but it is how I felt and I wouldn't be surprised if that is how other non programmers came to feel also.

 

2. The 2nd reason is that before Josh put his picture and name on the forum he SEEMED much colder and uncaring. I was not the only one to get the impression from him. He has a way of just stating the facts. If the answer is "no", sometimes he'll just say, "No." And you're like..."What? That's it?...no?" Also there was a couple of times I made bug reports that Josh didn't believe me about and it took almost an entire month for him to get around to actually checking to see if my bug reports were accurate and then guess what? They were. And all he said was, "I don't know if this is the bug you were talking about but I changed this thing" After an entire month of doubting my concerns I was right, and he didnt' really apologize or anything it was just like... "Oh maybe this was a coincident, I don't know, but I changed some code here"

 

Anyways, Since right before Werkspace was completed, I've never seen anything like that coming from Josh. And it's been a much better experience for me overall. And I have no complaints whatsoever. Josh even listens to my concerns which I didn't feel like he was before. Maybe he was listening the entire time, and it was all in my head just because of the fact that he put a picture of himself with a friendly expression on his face. I don't know. But I just know that it was entirely possible for a non programmer to find reasons to be dissatisfied back in the day. It was. Now it's completely different. Especially cuz we got this gigantic cake of awesome known as Lua.

[Rick]

I don't think those negative comments about LE's performance are relative to anything. People who don't know how those kinds of things work just expect certain results. They most likely played a game that seemed to have thousands of animated/static models and endless terrain and run at 60 fps on their PC and when they tried to get the same with LE it didn't happen. They often don't realize that tricks are used to get such things most times.

 

That plus most aren't programmers and it makes sense why they would post such things. If might not be valid, but one can see why they would make such negative posts.

[ZioRed]

I am definitely not a senior game developer (I'm still newbie in game development), but I agree with someone else who said in another thread that currently LE is more a renderer engine than a game engine, and I think this is the focus of those negative comments. As pretty "game engine" LE still lacks some features that are exposed in many others, first but not last some AI and GUI specific. However I agree with Rick, probably most of the negatives' authors were probably non-programmers and the programmers among them were mostly complaining about a protracted period during which Josh did changes to the code invalidating something that worked before (and this seems to be true in the past as I read in many posts on this forum, even if I have no personal experience since I started with 2.31).

[Josh]

So a built-in GUI and pathfinding are the only things preventing them from making their game? I think not.

 

Those users need something a lot more high-level. The best thing for them is to have a set of game code and games they can drag around and modify without coding. We have a plan for that without limiting the capability of the engine, but for now the engine is not aimed at them.

[Rick]

So do I

[Naughty Alien]

..i hope engine will not grow in to unity/shiva form of engine, just for sake of hobbyists satisfaction..biggest benefit for me is ability to have freedom in a way to code i want or to create tools suit my own needs..

[Rick]

If that's the case NA would you be using Phyre Engine? If so, why? I assume Phyre is more of what a traditional engine is and not like LE where it's purely an API.

 

I like making tools too, but if the ultimate tool was already made and affordable, then why not use it? Everyone is trying to create the ultimate tool for game deve though. That's the challenge and the fun

[cassius]

I am a hobbyist user of le and I am happy with it as it is now.

[VicToMeyeZR]

Need to update the price on devmaster also Josh.

[Sooshi]

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[Sooshi]

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[Sooshi]

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[Pancakes]

The fact is that game engines are changing big time. CryEngine 2 and Blender game engine, and Blade3d (now out of business), are the harbingers of this change. Once young people have gotten a taste of them...which they have, including myself, their entire expectation of what a game engine is has been redefined. Any game engine developer who doesn't come to understand this is intentionally choosing not to embrace the future.

 

Ogre3d is a big culprit in that regard. They are non commercial and have zero reason to appeal to a wider group of anyone. All these years what has been stopping them from making their renderer, often associated with game engines, more widely accessible to the public, hobbyists, children, etc. Just a lack of will.

 

However, what about commercial engines like Leadwerks that seek customers? It's a completely different situation because these engines have chosen to make themselves a component of the free market.

 

The guys posting nasty reviews wish that a certain type of game engine exists. And because that game engine they wish for 'apparently' wasn't Leadwerks, in their eyes at least, they'd just as soon see Leadwerks die in a fiery explosion inside a volcano. Why would they quietly leave? They still don't feel satisfied within the entirety of the indie game engine market yet. They demand something different by the power of their 'expectations'...who will supply them with what they think they want?

 

Right as they are. Or wrong as they are. They do partially represent the demands of the market. Which translate into the oppurtunity to make profits.

 

If game engines are an art. This is an 'ugly' reality.

 

If game engines are a service for a humanity. Then this is a 'beautiful' truth.

 

Problem is that game engines are both an art form and a service and defining exactly how they should be developed for future generations is a tricky business indeed. You have to strike a balance in moving forward.

[cassius]

Software reviews are best left to pro computer journalists who can give a balanced expert view without personal predjudice. The saying "Don't beleive all you read in the papers" is even more true of the internet.In the meantime we go on using game engines to make games for kids who probably would be better off playing football and getting some exercise.

[L B]

..i hope engine will not grow in to unity/shiva form of engine, just for sake of hobbyists satisfaction..biggest benefit for me is ability to have freedom in a way to code i want or to create tools suit my own needs..

+1.

Leadwerks is easy and powerful in its current state.

[Josh]

There's going to be more high-level options, but it's being done in a way that won't cramp your style. As always, Leadwerks is designed for producing games, and won't be dumbed down to appease novices. Ease of use is important in terms of efficiency. If I can make it easier for you to set up your game rules and then start producing levels, in a way that doesn't inhibit flexibility, then that is the kind of high-level interaction I can get on board with.

 

I think 3.0 will appeal more to beginners than the current version does, but that's because it gives you levels of interaction. In fact, an expert programmer can work with a few beginners, and everyone will actually be able to contribute meaningful work to make a game.