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Torque3D Just Shut Down Development

polycounter lvl 11
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jocose polycounter lvl 11
Not really surprising.

They are currently shopping around for buyers. Engine kept improving, but way too slow.

Employees were all let go.

You can read more here: http://www.torquepowered.com/community/blogs/view/20495

There were some really amazing developers working on it. I hope all those effected find work.

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  • Kovac
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    Kovac polycounter lvl 18
    Actually this was just the InstantAction branch; their online game community. It doesn't effect development of Torque at all as far as the article states.
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    The group I was part of, kept complaining about changes that basically broke all the previous code. That's just bad development, if you can't provide a stable development environment. Not to mention, I think it was their map editor, that they decided to drop completely.

    I thought it had great potential, but was ran very poorly.

    Edit: Ok, I posted before reading the article. This explains why they sold the rights to Tribes, the other week.
    Sounds like they are basically shutting down altogether.
  • jocose
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    jocose polycounter lvl 11
    I spoke with several of the developers on chat. They were all laid off. I don't know if that was made clear or not in the announcement but I checked with the employees before posting.

    No developers = no development.

    For the time being at least.
  • Farfarer
    Eh, Torque was always a right pain to work with. Hated doing freelance for games that used it.

    Unity's just so damn nice in comparison...
  • jocose
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    jocose polycounter lvl 11
    Eh, Torque was always a right pain to work with. Hated doing freelance for games that used it.
    Yep, Torque always had very poor support for artists. I'm sure you wont find any love for it here.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Talon wrote: »
    Eh, Torque was always a right pain to work with. Hated doing freelance for games that used it.

    Unity's just so damn nice in comparison...

    +1

    And when Torque 3D came out. You needed an entire new license versus the previous. Unity and Unreal going indie killed them.
  • Snowfly
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    Snowfly polycounter lvl 18
    Sadly the pain isn't over for some of us who are still forced to use the damn thing. Good riddance, hopefully I can convince the guys at work to finally make the switch to Unity.
  • Turbosmooth Operator
    notman wrote: »
    Not to mention, I think it was their map editor, that they decided to drop completely.
    Do you mean Constructor?
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    **Raises hand in agreement about how much a PITA Torque is/was to work with.**
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    Do you mean Constructor?

    I think that was it... to be honest, I had already dropped from the project at that point. I just recall seeing people complaining about it, then seeing the posts at GG, about how they weren't going to replace it for the latest code.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    Ugh

    I remember having to use QUARK to get any of my models to work in that thing.

    >_<


    Sucks about the layoffs though. Never want to hear about that.
  • Turbosmooth Operator
    notman wrote: »
    I think that was it... to be honest, I had already dropped from the project at that point. I just recall seeing people complaining about it, then seeing the posts at GG, about how they weren't going to replace it for the latest code.
    Yeah, Constructor was a mess in many more ways than one. I know it's a sore subject around the office here..

    Torque was always an adventure to work with, but at the time was the only option in the indie space. I remember joining in the Game in a Day's and having to spend at least 50% of our time hacking around the engine's problems. We had a 10 hour issue with importing a simple model one time.. Not fun. And this isn't amateur stuff, we were very experienced with the engine. I can't imagine what first timers had to go through.

    Constantly scrapping half-finished engines only to replace them with new products seemingly every year didn't help instill confidence in the customer either.
  • gsokol
    Tough break for those guys. They tried to get us to use Torque when I was in school...I got nowhere with it...too difficult to use for me.

    Their niche was overrun with too many solid alternatives. Unity, which I'm a big fan of, is really picking up steam, and with UDK fitting into the same category by being free (unless you make a bunch of money of course) there was no way Torque could stay afloat without some radical changes.

    With that being said, I'm not suprised this happened, but I still feel bad for the people who lost jobs out of this :(
  • TSM
    The guys at Terathon (With the C4 engine) have dropped their price 50% in news of this. I feel for the developers who cannot sustain their games anymore.

    Hope they find a new (and better) home!
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    I love the option of having Unreal as a free option, but yeah, I feel bad for guys that are trying to compete with a giant software company. I guess, on that same point, they could have done a better job before Unity was available, and they would have some brand loyalty (in regards to Torque).

    Maybe the developers can create their own Indie projects now :/
  • Turbosmooth Operator
    TSM wrote: »
    The guys at Terathon (With the C4 engine) have dropped their price 50% in news of this. I feel for the developers who cannot sustain their games anymore.

    Hope they find a new (and better) home!
    Synapse Gaming, the company responsible for TLK (redoing all Torque's lighting, eventually was rolled into Torque itself) is doing the same with SunBurn.

    Edit: Looks like Leadwerks is doing the same.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    We instead are going with a opensource game framework and engine our programmer is helping to develop with a group of other like minded indie developers.

    IndieZen.
    http://www.indiezen.org/

    (And yes its Roadmap is behind. They always can use more help if any of your programmers want to chip in.)
  • Vailias
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    Vailias polycounter lvl 18
    Not surprised totally either, for most of the reasons mentioned above.
    You could do things with Torque, but you could do them faster and easier in almost anything else. I even gave the Torque3d demo a go, and found that while it was prettier, and finally had an acceptable art pipeline, the overall user experience was still annoying as hell.

    @Turbosmooth Operator: See where as you had a 10 hour problem, I once had a month long model import issue, albeit a month of freetime, but I wasn't a noob to working with game art then either, just new to torque.

    Plus the overall mentality behind how the code worked seemed so broken and special purpose, very non general.

    I wonder if this is the entire instant action company.. Looks like torque and its games are still available...


    Well, I suppose this makes the Instant Action t-shirt I got at GDC 2 years ago a collectible. sorta.
  • Turbosmooth Operator
    Vailias wrote: »
    Not surprised totally either, for most of the reasons mentioned above.
    You could do things with Torque, but you could do them faster and easier in almost anything else. I even gave the Torque3d demo a go, and found that while it was prettier, and finally had an acceptable art pipeline, the overall user experience was still annoying as hell.

    @Turbosmooth Operator: See where as you had a 10 hour problem, I once had a month long model import issue, albeit a month of freetime, but I wasn't a noob to working with game art then either, just new to torque.

    Plus the overall mentality behind how the code worked seemed so broken and special purpose, very non general.
    Yeah, I remember being told that Torque crashing was its way of telling us that there was something wrong with our mesh. Of course it doesn't tell you which mesh or what is wrong with it. "You wouldn't want a broken mesh to be able to be imported, would you?" Well, actually I would so I could easily recognize it both being broken and what was broken. Fun times.
    I wonder if this is the entire instant action company.. Looks like torque and its games are still available...
    Yes, this is the entire company.
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    I'm curious what they are doing for the people who have paid for the annual torque license.
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