LE3 Release date when..?

[Benton]

You, my good man, have made my day.

[Rick]

This article is interesting: http://thegamebakers.com/money-and-the-app-store-a-few-figures-that-might-help-an-indie-developer.html

 

I think mobile is good for LE business for the pure fact that everyone wants to try and make it rich on mobile so they won't buy an engine that doesn't support it. However, I think the article helps bring a reality to the situation that at first glance looks like a gold mine.

[Road Kill Kenny]

Oh well this news sucks. Guess that means the real LE3D won't be released until 2013...

 

Looks like the games industry has been sold to the devil called 'uber casual gaming'

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but with the massive influx of mobile game development isn't the market going to be over saturated really quickly. There is more opportunity (apparently) on mobile hence there are more developers and hence more competetive which will bring everything back to square one....

 

Thats a good article Rick

[Naughty Alien]

..friendly piece of advice for anyone whos attempting making some game..dont wait any tool to be released, in order to produce your game..simply go with whatever is available and fire it out..once your desired tool is out, take it and keep going with new stuff..waiting tool to make a game is a lame exuse, for not making game at all..

[Josh]

Oh well this news sucks. Guess that means the real LE3D won't be released until 2013...

 

Looks like the games industry has been sold to the devil called 'uber casual gaming'

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but with the massive influx of mobile game development isn't the market going to be over saturated really quickly. There is more opportunity (apparently) on mobile hence there are more developers and hence more competetive which will bring everything back to square one....

 

Thats a good article Rick

Most mobile games are still really horrible quality. 3D games are actually still very rare. It's a sweet spot where most indies won't put the effort in to make a good game, and most pro studios aren't dipping in yet.

 

You are right that if you want to make a really lousy game, it won't make you rich. If you make a decent game on mobile, it will by default be in the top ten, since there aren't very many good ones.

[Road Kill Kenny]

..friendly piece of advice for anyone whos attempting making some game..dont wait any tool to be released, in order to produce your game..simply go with whatever is available and fire it out..once your desired tool is out, take it and keep going with new stuff..waiting tool to make a game is a lame exuse, for not making game at all..

 

Thanks for the advice

[NarkLord]

I'm just excited to see what the capabilities of LE3 are, I have no intention of developing for mobile devices but I do want to play around with the dynamic nav mesh and pathfinding . With these low end graphics LE3 should run extremely well on pc shouldn't it? Iv'e always been one for gameplay over graphics any day.

[knocks]

Seems leadwerks is more interested new users than existing ones. When asked 70% of users where interested in developing for the desktop market.

Can’t say I’m excited about the new release, was mostly interested in the work flow improvements such as asset updating, undo and object scaling.

[Benton]

Well LE 3.0 will have mobile graphics but they might get upgraded for 3.1, Josh said that he will write a more advance renderer after LE3 is released.

 

How can we expect Josh not to try to draw in new customers. Tell me one business that does not try to gain more market share? If he does not make any money then he stops working on LE cause he needs to get a job and then where are we?

[Road Kill Kenny]

Most mobile games are still really horrible quality. 3D games are actually still very rare. It's a sweet spot where most indies won't put the effort in to make a good game, and most pro studios aren't dipping in yet.

 

You are right that if you want to make a really lousy game, it won't make you rich. If you make a decent game on mobile, it will by default be in the top ten, since there aren't very many good ones.

 

Think about it this way: If you were an investor and wanted to hire a team to make a small game and turn a profit, and could only pick one OS to release on, which would you pick, to make a return on your money? I know my answer.

 

So in saying that do you forsee the kinds of games that are on PC with propper gameplay (not gimmicky) being on mobile platforms... such as RTS games like starcraft for example for tablets?

 

I just think its so frustrating how the mobile platform ruins immersion. The moment you put your finger on the screen to do something you block part of the screen and your immersion is gone... especially with mobile fps games which I've played a few of. None of which I've enjoyed.

 

Also I think its almost limited to only tablets. I mean you can make games for smart phones but the screen is so small that they are often not playable to an enjoyable level.

[Josh]

So in saying that do you forsee the kinds of games that are on PC with propper gameplay (not gimmicky) being on mobile platforms... such as RTS games like starcraft for example for tablets?

 

I just think its so frustrating how the mobile platform ruins immersion. The moment you put your finger on the screen to do something you block part of the screen and your immersion is gone... especially with mobile fps games which I've played a few of. None of which I've enjoyed.

 

Also I think its almost limited to only tablets. I mean you can make games for smart phones but the screen is so small that they are often not playable to an enjoyable level.

Totally agree. MC3 is pretty much unplayable. I think Apple is going to come out with a living room product that comes with a GamePad, and all the control issues will go away.

 

It's pretty easy to program mouse controls for PC, and then touch for mobile. To balance it out, you'll probably have to make the damage enemies do much less for the mobile build, or something like that, but you can get one game playing on both.

[Road Kill Kenny]

So basically it's pretty much going to turn into a hand held console.

[knocks]

Well LE 3.0 will have mobile graphics but they might get upgraded for 3.1, Josh said that he will write a more advance renderer after LE3 is released.

 

How can we expect Josh not to try to draw in new customers. Tell me one business that does not try to gain more market share? If he does not make any money then he stops working on LE cause he needs to get a job and then where are we?

 

 

Benton perhaps if you watched the development of le3 for close to 2 years you would be a little disappointed to find there is no immediate benefit to your current project. If I was interested in developing a mobile game I would have never purchased le2.

[Canardia]

I actually need LE3 to make business apps and system tools for mobile, but of course some 3D graphics is needed for them too if you want to make them look fancy and provide some additional value to the customers.

[Roland]

This comes as a chock for me who is not interested in Phone Development at all.

I stayed with LE2, waiting for LE3 to be a much better PC-Engine. And as I understand

it, it might be. But not 2012, maybe 2013 or ....

 

I completely understand the reasoning why it has to be that way.

But now it seems that LE3 is not the way to go for me who is not into App-Development at all.

Understands that is the way it is, impossible to make everyone happy I guess.

 

However this forces me to rethink a bit. Can't wait for 'to be added later' on. I'm 59

Anyway. Good luck with LE3.

[Benton]

Josh has already made an amazing renderer once. I bet he could push one out in a couple months, it might just take porting the old one.

 

I watched ShiVa development for close to a year, hoping for improvements. It is now two years overdue, and finally we get some news. They are redesigning the editor. That's it. I waited a whole year so I could make a game with better terrain and graphics. I totally understand how you feel.

 

You guys might want to go somewhere else but here is what everyone is forgetting is that mobile renderer does not = mobile graphics. I means you just don't get some post-processing effects and stuff that is only possable on OpenGL 3+. You know Half Life? Not amazing graphics. But an amazing game. Mobile renderer does not = 256 textures and super low poly count. There is a half life mod that looks amazing. Really realistic. It was just good art!

 

What AAA graphic games have you seen designed by one indie developer for PC? Any? No. Is Minecraft AAA? No. Did it make money? Tonnes.

 

What makes a good game is not just graphics. If that's all you want use UDK. Have fun with it...

[Pixel Perfect]

I've stated all along that I had no interest in buying the initial version of LE3 as it was never going to deliver what I want from an engine, that's why I've stuck to development based on LE2. It's more than capable of making a huge range of good quality PC based games, especially if your prepared to integrate other third party modules. Once the 'fully fledged' version of LE3 appears and is proven to be stable then I'll consider it based on its merits at the time.

 

I personally agree with Naughty Alien's earlier comments, that's good advice.

 

For anyone wanting to make mobile based games though LE3 is looking good, will be interesting to see what the final price for the engine is though.

[Road Kill Kenny]

What AAA graphic games have you seen designed by one indie developer for PC? Any? No. Is Minecraft AAA? No. Did it make money? Tonnes.

 

I'd rather stay a civil engineer for the rest of my life than make games like Minecraft and be a money grabber.

 

Also dude. Half Life was actually AAA graphics for its time.....

[Naughty Alien]

Josh has already made an amazing renderer once. I bet he could push one out in a couple months, it might just take porting the old one.

 

I watched ShiVa development for close to a year, hoping for improvements. It is now two years overdue, and finally we get some news. They are redesigning the editor. That's it. I waited a whole year so I could make a game with better terrain and graphics. I totally understand how you feel.

 

You guys might want to go somewhere else but here is what everyone is forgetting is that mobile renderer does not = mobile graphics. I means you just don't get some post-processing effects and stuff that is only possable on OpenGL 3+. You know Half Life? Not amazing graphics. But an amazing game. Mobile renderer does not = 256 textures and super low poly count. There is a half life mod that looks amazing. Really realistic. It was just good art!

 

What AAA graphic games have you seen designed by one indie developer for PC? Any? No. Is Minecraft AAA? No. Did it make money? Tonnes.

 

What makes a good game is not just graphics. If that's all you want use UDK. Have fun with it...

 

..but that's exactly point..as a indie, you CANT make art that stands out better than AAA stuff..AAA/Indie world was never separated and it never will be, by tech..its limited by team ability to produce outstanding artwork, animations, sound, voice acting and original, high quality soundtracks, for just one and single purpose..to support your game play..there is not a one thing i mentioned in this list, related to tech..if I tell you how much cost one good sound composer/artist, you will choke most probably..my point is, all things related in your post doesn't change a thing, except removing powerful renderer people use to have with LE2 by missing it obviously, from LE3 release, at this moment..and thats what people here, most probably complaining about..to have something to 'show off' if you want to call it that way, when render out something, out of indie world, what is literally same if not better looking than products done by large studios..most of the people enjoyed fact that they have tool/toy, what could make multimillion systems shy..so, since LE3 in its initial form, doesnt offer that (totally reasonable as it is enormous work, and everyone who ever took attempt to write renderer will understand it, while Josh need to survive, at the end of the day), and people 'complaining' about that..simple as it is..

[Benton]

Half life was AAA for its time. Most mobile games would be AAA 15 years ago.

 

Don't quite understand what you are saying Alien...

 

My point is, any half decent artist can make art that looks good in any engine. You should use an engine based on what it offers and what you need from it. I would rather have a good art pipeline then godrays because at the end of the day no gamer looks at the godrays and say "man this game rocks it has godrays"

 

Look at any AAA game on the market. Imagine poor art in the game. It's not AAA anymore is it? Now imagine an AAA game without the amazing effects. No motion blur? No godrays? No HDR? It will still look good because the art is good.

 

Half Life looked awesome for its time. Now it looks not too good. But it is still fun to play. Go find a tech demo where you walk around on an island. It might look amazing, but all you do is walk around. In 5 years the graphics will be **** and so all you do is walk around in a lame environment. Sound fun?

 

You can't make an AAA game as an indie. Not possable. The AAA games have many many artists. Even if they only had 50, and it took all 50 of them a year to make all the art assets. It would take you 50 years to do it yourself. Realistic? Nope.

The only way you can make a good game for PC is to forget about it being an AAA graphics game. Not possable. You need to make good gameplay.

 

Who still plays the original doom? Who still plays FPS's? The original Doom looks like **** now, but we still play the same GAMEPLAY.

 

So anyone who thinks advanced graphic effects make the game: What is more fun? An island demo made in Cryengine or Pacman?

 

 

Sorry about grammar but I'm on my iPod typing this up.

[Naughty Alien]

you have to understand constraints of time when game is designed, as development techniques and tech change over time..for HL2 you talking about, took 300 people and 4 years of hard work to get it out on API similar to DX7 ... if you look at that, you will understand magnitude of such work and achievement scale..its same newdays, if not even more demanding...

[Flexman]

I think the key phrase here is "expectation management".

 

Another key phrase...and it's really...I mean really hard to take this one in, I find it hard to visualise this one..."Man century". That's the level of effort involved in some games now.

 

 

I'd rather stay a civil engineer for the rest of my life than make games like Minecraft and be a money grabber.

 

Funny you saying that, one of my fav old games was written by Sandy White (circa 1983), built a virtual city in hex. He was an architect not a programmer by trade. You can even play it from a link here... http://sandywhite.co.uk/fun/ants/

 

 

Nothing wrong in being successful though. Minecraft deserves it's success, it just happened to give kids what they really wanted instead of what game designers have traditionally been telling everyone what they wanted. I watch my kids use it for all kinds of things. But most of all they use it to tell their OWN stories and share them.

 

True there's a lot of cynical exploitation, that's any media for you. Find a wagon, chuck a band on it.

 

Not sure I have much use for another 3D mobile engine when I have two to choose from, although one isn't very good. You still have the same problem of creating fully fleshed out ideas in code regardless.

 

 

If I can sit down with LE3, drag an animated FBX cartoon boy character onto a plane, attach a third-person controller script, a cube and a pickup trigger and run it on an iPad so I can control him to pick-up the cube...do all that in under 15 mins I might be sold. That's the kind of usability I'm used to today.

[ChrisV]

Hum......I'm a bit dissapointed aswell. Mainly for the fact that I'll have to wait longer for the high end version of LE3 to come out. I have nothing against mobile development, but I'm more of a PC guy (actually, I don't have any mobile devices, except for a phone ).

I can see there's a market for mobile development for indies, but having both options in the same engine would be superb.

So, what does this mean, Josh? The first version will be exclusive for mobile development (meaning no high end graphics)?

Also, does it mean the first version will be cheaper than the final? Is it best to wait for the final (high end) version?

When can we expect the high end version to come out, Josh? Thanks.

 

You can't make an AAA game as an indie. Not possable. The AAA games have many many artists. Even if they only had 50, and it took all 50 of them a year to make all the art assets. It would take you 50 years to do it yourself. Realistic? Nope.

The only way you can make a good game for PC is to forget about it being an AAA graphics game. Not possable. You need to make good gameplay.

Well, I would disagree on that. You can still make AAA games, as an indie. But, not on your own. Having a small group of decent developers/artists can get you very far. Did you know that for games (such as Half Life, Doom 3, Crysis, etc...) they have artists that never draw/model anything for the game? These 'artists' only provide ideas for art, do research, etc. Sure, big game development teams have fewer persons to work on the game, have better tools (like a high end engine), have more budget.

 

Good gameplay is essential indeed, but saying that graphics don't matter that much, is not correct either. You need both in order to have success.

Graphics are teh first thing you'll see when playing any game. It's just like eating food...the first thing you do, is LOOK at the food in front of you. It might taste heavenly, but if the presentation/look is below zero, your appetite will be below zero too.

Same goes for games. Games made 15 years ago looked pixelated and blocky indeed, but still, the art itself was stunning. Even with only a few colours they managed to create convincing characters, environments, etc...

Nowadays, graphics are sometimes as real as it gets...with realistic environments, cool weather effects, and all the other cool visual things you see. And yeah, maybe we don't need all those shiny effects and shaders, but still, if you can play a game with all those effects on, or play the same game without them, what would you prefer?

[Roland]

Exactly my standpoint "Developer".

 

I have no phone capable of gaming either. Why? Because its nothing of interest for me.

 

My plan is to make a game for PC in same calm and good looking style as "Astralum (CyberAstral Journeys)" thats

been show here at the forum. I have no interest of mobile phone development at all.

 

This feels a bit strange. Since the first LE2 versions we have been loosing things. Example is the extremly nice water, the terrain brushes n the editor. Ok, has been my thought. LE3 will give us that back and probably even more. Now it seems that LE3 (first version) will be another step backward. Not to exiting news. I really hope that I'm missunderstanding all this.

 

This new direction of things leads me to questions!

 

Is Leadwerks still the right choice for me? Hopefully so, but I would like to see some

kind of plan what the future will look like, avoiding a new negative surprise.

 

What is the plan regardning a high graphics version.

 

Excpected time frame? Before end of 2012, 2013 Q1, Q2 ?

What will such an 'upgrade' add to the first LE3.?

What price group are we then in? 300$, 500$, 1000$ ?

[Pixel Perfect]

Continue with your game development in LE2 Roland, as I am doing, and save yourself the outlay for LE3. Its not something we really need for the types of games and platform we are targeting and there is nothing LE2 is missing that can't be added by incorporating external modules.

 

The truth is, for PC targeted game development, there is no need for LE3! Most of us will struggle to utilise all of LE2's capability as individual or small team developers. Sure it would be nice to have some additional features / functionality, but non of it is essential for most developers or in anyway a show stopper.