Terragen 2 Release Announcement Discussion

Started by Oshyan, December 12, 2007, 07:10:04 PM

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nikita

Quote from: latego on April 12, 2008, 11:16:11 AMOr better, like Cajomi (GeoControl daddy): as soon as the new product is usable (even if with known bugs and limitations), release it in, an open beta phase, to all previous version registered users. Every 4-6-8 weeks, a new beta is out, with improvements and bug fixes. Known bugs are noted in the release notes so users are aware of them.
That'd be cool, but as far as i know, the latest work on TG2 included fundamental changes to the render engine. They could have released more betas, but imagine the reaction of the community when the release comes with this known bug:
"- rendering doesn't work yet"
.. which would have been the case if they released a beta in the middle of development of the new engine.

Also, the bugs are what annoys me most in the current release of tg2, so I don't agree with people saying they don't mind the bugs.


Nonetheless, I'm starting to wonder what happens behind the scenes. The announcement in January mentioned a bug that has suddenly occurred. I find it hard to believe, that a bug could delay development so much. For now, I'll just assume that Planetside has good reasons for all this and that alpha-testing will end soon and we get to play with the beta, but I can't say I'm happy with the progress so far.

GarryFre

Well, I don't like bugs, and I don't like expectation postponed but what is worse is this "No end in sight" of the waiting game.

They are far past the time they said they would release it with no, absolutely no info on a possible release era.

Far as I know it was supposed to been released Feb 15, If problems then a few weeks later. Well it's now coming up to eight weeks later.

Eight is not a few that's many weeks.

Obviously the user who said that Planetside has no sense of time has uttered the ultimate truth so obviously they can't make promises, so how bout a weekly update on what was fixed or added?

It would really spice up interest, keep us feeling like we are seeing prograss and getting something instead of sitting here shackled to our seats watching a dead animal for signs of life.
The world malfunctions in mysterious ways.

sjefen

Just give me GTA IV and I'll wait for Terragen 2. xD
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Seth

Quote from: sjefen on April 12, 2008, 01:33:34 PM
Just give me GTA IV and I'll wait for Terragen 2. xD

April 29th buddy... April 29th...
just waiting for that too ^^'

PG

We have seen several examples of advancement in development from the guys at planetside, Fenring, maybe you don't count renders as news but many of us do. How many other pieces of softwaare have you followed through development where you've been offered anything more than a few screenshots? Video games are a prime example, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, Tom Clancy's EndWar. They've all been in development for years, all been postponed by months at a time, all with little more than a whiff of screenshots, most of them prerendered. Hell every evidence of Splinter Cell Conviction has been of one level. I'm a game developer myself, I've done more for London Mafia, my own game than we've seen in those screenshots, and they were released months ago, we've seen no development since, in that case we can have grounds to consider that production has halted, at least temporarily. Eventually it was announced that development had been paused. but we have seen evidence of Terragen 2's development, if that isn't good enough for you then maybe you made the mistake of choosing planetside, but that's your mistake, not theirs. All I'm saying is that there are actually very few companies that will keep prospective customers (seeing as fewer companies have pre purchase options) as "in the loop" as planetside has. Almost all software companies will give very small peeks at production to give customers a taste and then provide streams of announcements, screenshots, trailers, etc. mere months before the final release. I would suggest that the main reason that you are unhappy is because Terragen was announced when it was still pre-alpha, this is very unusual for a company to do but the development time has been pretty average, if not, above average.
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Cyber-Angel

What would be nice (And this would be a radical departure for Planetside) is if Planetside a lesion from Mozilla and adopted the concept of nightly builds then people in the wider user base could help find the bug's sooner. Also what Planetside needs is a bug tracker on their thats akin to some thing like Bugzilla used to track bug's in Firefox.

Also given the opportunity I am sure that there are coders in the community who given the opportunity would be prepared to help even if that meant signing some kind of NDA or other kind of confidentiality agreement if proprietary code and intellectual property are the issues.

The other option (likely to be flatly rejected) is to make Terragen Partly Open Source with just enough exposure to make community help useful and get whatever bugs and stability issues that remain sorted out under the right license you could develop faster and have new versions out sooner, just a thought any way that way Terragen is still a commercial product and Planetside still gets its revenue stream, it just takes less time to get to market.

Things could go some thing like this, new features (and versions) get developed in house at Planetside and are passed to the closed Alpha Test Group to find the major issues as per now, once that is done a build could then be released for the community to look at and final bugs and other issues sorted out, before testing freeze and public release.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel  ;D
                       

PG

I like your first idea, also to go with that, maybe planetside could release builds as "at your own risk". That is then a disclaimer for them so they have made us aware that they aren't guaranteed releases but everyone who wants an update is happy.
Figured out how to do clicky signatures


bobbystahr

Quote from: nvseal on April 12, 2008, 09:51:51 PM
Check out Luc Bianco's awesome new picture. http://lucbianco.free.fr/2bgal/img/T2_2008/TGD841.jpg  :o

Very nice...enticing...just wanna take off my shoes and walk in it.. ...
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

PG

Hmm, there does appear to be a bit of an issue with the reflectivity of the water when transparency is enabled, might just be me though.
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Mandrake

Quote from: nvseal on April 12, 2008, 09:51:51 PM
Check out Luc Bianco's awesome new picture. http://lucbianco.free.fr/2bgal/img/T2_2008/TGD841.jpg  :o

That' a nice render. That make 3 I believe, alpha renders I've seen. The two Matt showed us and this one.
Are there any more out there?

Seth

Quote from: PG on April 13, 2008, 06:38:53 AM
Hmm, there does appear to be a bit of an issue with the reflectivity of the water when transparency is enabled, might just be me though.

What i see is compression problems... but i am not a specialist perhaps you're right

reck

Quote from: Mandrake on April 13, 2008, 07:16:24 AM
Quote from: nvseal on April 12, 2008, 09:51:51 PM
Check out Luc Bianco's awesome new picture. http://lucbianco.free.fr/2bgal/img/T2_2008/TGD841.jpg  :o

That' a nice render. That make 3 I believe, alpha renders I've seen. The two Matt showed us and this one.
Are there any more out there?

Mandrake, Frank has also posted a nice image.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3767.0


Mandrake

Thanks reck, that shows promise also, hell if I can see those underwater bubbles though.

Mandrake



What i see is compression problems... but i am not a specialist perhaps you're right
[/quote]

Hey seth, congrats on making the image of the week, on the Terragen site!!