..devmaster reviews..

[Naughty Alien]

..I just went trough devmaster site, and i was surprised by its new design..so I was just surfing trough it and decided to check out how LE stands..on my surprise, all recent posts were quite negative, and mostly aiming on to editor..since i dont use editor at all, and i never was, Im wondering, is it really that bad, or those reviews are a bit more biased then they should be ?? If you look carefully to older reviews, you may notice that they were more positive, and its at the time when editor was actually not good as it is now (i guess?) ? Are those people real users of system?? I cant recognize none of review authors so maybe they were using some 'demo' version or something ?? I was under impression that LE should do much better, to be honest.

[Furbolg]

Maybe the say the LE editor is worse today because there is more competition. Look how popular Unity became the last years as an example. Its sometime just the opinion of an individual person and mostly not objective and fair to the engine/editor/Josh.

 

To be honest, i miss the scale ability

[Road Kill Kenny]

I have a feeling that a lot of people want everything in 1 package where they can pretty much make the whole game in the editor... I personally couldn't care less about that but a lot of people do I guess.

 

In my opinion the editor is just fine for its purpose..

 

Wow you're right I had a look the reviews.... the latest 6 reviews give only 2 stars 3 stars max but all the older ones are 4 - 5.......

[Road Kill Kenny]

Haha I saw a review in there saying Abyssal Engine is better.... I know for a fact that the owner of Abyssal posts **** like that in a lot of places..... So that explains that one.

[gamecreator]

It's pretty easy to pick apart most whiners' arguments. Some complain about the community which makes it clear they're just disgruntled. One talked about LODs popping which can be adjusted and fixed and also depends on the models themselves, not the engine. A few talked about performance, which I can't really speak to.

 

Is the developer allowed to respond to comments, like on NewEgg? If so, I think it might be worth correcting some misconceptions. Also note that except for the first five "reviews," everything else is from 2009 or older.

[Road Kill Kenny]

I wouldn't take any of these reviews seriously to be honest.

 

I came from an engine called DXStudio... and to be honest it is a kids toy. However, it gets 5 stars (http://devmaster.net/devdb/engines/dx-studio#user-reviews) for being idiot proof even though it lacks the ability to make unique games.. However, I used it for a long time and took me a while to see through the idiot proof stuff to find out that it was pretty hopeless.... hence I came here where I have freedom to make my game however I want without being limited to an "editor"

 

Most of the complaints in the LE reviews fit into the (its too hard for me catagory imo).

[Scott Richmond]

That said, LE2 is really is extremely far behind the modern day competition these days. That itself shouldn't garner negative reviews. But I think people expect a lot more from an engine these days, especially one that asks for $200 upfront.

[Road Kill Kenny]

Wow... $200 Scott..... that is so unaffordable. For a proffessional copy of DXStudio when I was still there was $800......... and that thing is **** compared to LE....

[Scott Richmond]

$200 is extremely expensive when the top 2 engines available right now (UDK, Unity) are both FREE. Both engines are much better than LE2 in almost every way. Any indie dev would need an extremely good reason to drop $200 up front for LE2 when they can go use UDK or Unity completely for free until their product is successful enough to start paying royalties. At which point, as a company, you might re-evaluate your engine choice to a more economical one which may include LE3.

 

LE2 is actively being sunset by Josh with the imminent release of LE3. So I'm not surprised LE2 is beginning to get bad reviews - $200 is a lot to ask for what is now truthfully an inferior product within the marketplace.

[Road Kill Kenny]

OMG! $200..... the pain... What you want it upfront?? X| oh no I'm not going to eat for a month now.

 

Someone save me.... I don't think I can handle the the once of ever $200 fee which is the price to pay for royalty fee... Unreal and Unity could take millions off me if I'm successful but Oh $200 for life is way too much.

 

nah I'm done with this thread.

[Josh]

$200 is extremely expensive when the top 2 engines available right now (UDK, Unity) are both FREE.

Unity is somewhere around $3000 for the real thing and Unreal has been free since the beginning of time. That's how Red Orchestra came about. (And Counterstrike, with the Half-Life engine.) They changed the terms a bit and rebranded it, but it's the same situation that's always been.

[knocks]

Lucky for us all, the engine market is totally over saturated giving us all an opportunity to enjoy our hobby/profession regardless of one’s budget. Competition only encourages a better product. It’s a win-win situation for us all.

[Scott Richmond]

OMG! $200..... the pain... What you want it upfront?? X| oh no I'm not going to eat for a month now.

 

Someone save me.... I don't think I can handle the the once of ever $200 fee which is the price to pay for royalty fee... Unreal and Unity could take millions off me if I'm successful but Oh $200 for life is way too much.

 

nah I'm done with this thread.

When you're a indie developer whose just finished their degree with no job and want to create a game full time over the next 6 months every dollar counts. Not only is $200 upfront for an engine you've likely never used before a lot, its also currently a waste of money in my opinion - LE2 just doesn't cut it as compared to other engines in the market at this moment in time. That said I am eagerly awaiting LE3.

 

Unity is somewhere around $3000 for the real thing and Unreal has been free since the beginning of time. That's how Red Orchestra came about. (And Counterstrike, with the Half-Life engine.) They changed the terms a bit and rebranded it, but it's the same situation that's always been.

Unity is somewhere around $3000 when you make $100,000, which I think you can agree is nothing and well worth it at that point. Also Unreal was never free until UDK. Until UDK you were making a mod. And MAYBE you'd get picked up by the engine developer to commercialize the game. Like a total of 5 mods got that opportunity back in those days.

[Canardia]

Unfortunately there is not a single good engine on the market yet, when you want to make Android and Linux games with dynamic shadows and code in C++, but LE3 might be the first one.

[Naughty Alien]

..what I can say about UDK is that, while it does look cheap, 'free', to me is not worth investing money because, scale of interest im looking for is something what will make me pay for single use license what is equal to my dev cycle expenses. So, to me its big no no . Thats where systems such as LE or Phyre or JME comming in to picture. Provided that people using it, going in to depth with idea to build system what will suite specific needs for their teams , then I say LE is money saver and 200$ is nothing in comparison with financial feedback im getting right now. If i was using UDK, right now Ill have to pay for license, equal to my team development expenses spent on game. Instead, i have that money to push my dev cycle in to other directions, instead of paying for license,so, its really depending. Thats how it is for me anyway, and I assure you that few other teams such as Naughty Dog, or Insomniac, did same route. And they doing just fine.

[Scott Richmond]

There is no question of whether the business model LE employs is good or bad - Paying $200 upfront once is actually the cheapest and most economical option there is. The problem is that somewhere like 70% of small businesses in general fail in the first 2 years. I'm sure the stats are even worse in the game industry because it really is just so hard to finish a full game let alone one that will sell.

So a business model that requires you to pay upfront is a real tough sell in this industry. Your engine has to be one of the leaders in the market otherwise I don't see how it could work for the engine developer or the indie dev (No community, etc). I believe LE2 was in that position some time ago, however I just could not recommend it to anyone these days. Its too old, too many missing features, etc. I believe Josh realized that way ahead of the curve too - Which is why its being sunset and we're going to see LE3 shortly.

[Canardia]

I think most indie and small businesses fail, because they try to make money with their first attempts at game publishing. I think it's much easier to have a real job while you make your first 10-20 games for free, and after that you can slowly start to sell services and games, until you don't need your main job anymore. Also, with a real job $200 is nothing, as you spend that amount of money every week on food and other daily expenses anyway, which you don't really need all, but it's just comfortable.

[Road Kill Kenny]

I think it's much easier to have a real job while you make your first 10-20 games for free, and after that you can slowly start to sell services and games, until you don't need your main job anymore. Also, with a real job $200 is nothing, as you spend that amount of money every week on food and other daily expenses anyway, which you don't really need all, but it's just comfortable.

 

Totally agree with this lol.

 

You may not need all that stuff but there are definately many must haves. Rent for one... bye bye $320 a week. Food for me and my wife bye bye $80 - 120 a week, fuel to get to work bye bye $60 a week. Don't forget the electricity bill, phone bill etc. insurance yada yada yada. So yeh $200 is not very much.

 

Besides if it weren't for LE2 there would never be an LE3D. How do you think Josh can afford to make LE3D full time?

 

Anyway the thing is I wanted to be a game dev since bloody primary school. However, I knew this was not financially feasible straight off the bat. I had to get a more stable job to support myself and wife and I would work towards my dream. Hence I became an Engineer... Engineering is boring as hell and I go to work dreaming of game deving all day.... I have no passion for it. However, it was the right choice and I wouldn't change it for anything. Because now I can survive while I game dev.

 

What I'm saying here is reality is much more difficult than your planning. Sometimes you have to sacrifice first to get into a position where you can achieve your dreams whatever that may be. That goes for anything not just game dev.

[Pixel Perfect]

I don't want to get into arguments regarding which engines are better than which and which are financially a better bet. All I can say is you pays your money and takes your choice (either upfront or afterwards if the game proves successful). But hear are some of the observations I make when looking at whats out there.

 

Unity and UDK will always attract the lions share of interest simply because of the number of published games they have which is substantial in both camps.

 

Free engines do look attractive up front to developers with little to no money to invest but certainly in the case of UDK come with a massive learning curve. You wont be doing much in the first 6 months of using UDK other than 'learning the ropes'. But this is a powerful engine which has powered some huge games in the past and still does ... and as such represents to many a 'safe bet' and was an easy migration for the huge amount of modders out there that already have experience of the engine.

 

Unity has however, in the last few years, been massively successful at delilvering games to the iOS and Android games marketplace with even professional studios now choosing to develop games using it. It also has a vibrant user plugin marketplace offering a huge diversity of plugin game functionality from end users to again recognised well known developers from existing large game houses. The professional version (fully featured) is of course not free and considerably more expensive than Leadwerks. I have no idea what the learning curve is like but I suspect it is faster than UDK.

 

LE2 is likewise a great platform to base a game engine development on and is, more than most people seem to realise, quite capable of producing publishable games. For those who $200 dollars is not a large investment, which is generally true for anyone currently employed, then it too represents a great investment with potentially larger returns than either of the other two previously mentioned engines as no further payments are necessary (the point NA was addressing). Unfortunately not a single published game to date which rightly or wrongly in the eyes of a new developer is bound to raise questions!

 

LE3 is still an unknown at this point and I feel its unfair to comment on this although I look forward to seeing what's eventually delivered.

[Josh]

Its too old, too many missing features, etc.

Chasing features is the worst thing I could do. It consumes an enormous amount of resources, increases the complexity of the system with each thing you add, attracts the most unrealistic dreamers, and you will never satisfy who you are trying to satisfy because their tastes change each week. With Leadwerks3D I am focusing completely on the user experience and the ability to create gameplay. The entire focus is on the core user experience and facilitating the production of games, since that is where most people have trouble, in every system I have ever seen.

 

You get severely diminishing returns as you add more and more abstract features, and if the core experience isn't easy and simple, you can never go back and "fix" it without starting from scratch. I am betting that a good core experience with excellent documentation will win based on what I have seen over the years.

[cassius]

I gave le a good rev iew on devmaster a long time ago and my opinion has not changed. Some of the reviews are known to be fake.

I wouldn't use a free engime because I would always be wondering what I am missing out on by not having the full version.

le is good value in my opinion.

[DigitalHax]

I just want to confirm this, will LE2 plus the upgrade to LE3 cost more than LE3 standalone? and if so, what sort of price are we at for LE3?

 

Also, I have to say that the low reviews on devmaster would mostly be people who thought leadwerks was going to be a total breeze, or all the other companies just trying to crush leadwerks because it is getting some appreciation.

[Josh]

LE2 + upgrade < LE3

[Marleys Ghost]

It has been said many times, LE2 + Upgrade will be less than LE3 Full ... but of course if LE2 is $199.99 and the upgrade is $1000 and LE3 full is $1200 .. then LE2 + Upgrade is less than LE3 Full

[Josh]

It has been said many times, LE2 + Upgrade will be less than LE3 Full ... but of course if LE2 is $199.99 and the upgrade is $1000 and LE3 full is $1200 .. then LE2 + Upgrade is less than LE3 Full

For the record, the price of Leadwerks3D has not been announced or hinted at in any way. I'm not going to announce a price until the demo is ready. A lot of the features like the art pipeline sound trite until you start using it and see it's a tool you can actually get everything done with.