Does it make any sense to develop AGS further?

Started by Crimson Wizard, Thu 13/04/2017 19:10:09

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dactylopus

It's been talked about before, but a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for a new, updated AGS is actually a really good idea.  I'd be more than willing to throw some cash at a new product that was up-to-date and competitive in terms of features, and I know I'm not the only one.  And the people working on AGS deserve compensation, especially if they are willing to devote the time and resources to spearhead the development of an up-to-date version of the engine.

The biggest point against AGS is the lack of export features.  These days there are so many ways to distribute games, from handheld devices, consoles, different PC platforms, and the web.  That AGS is not able to export to these various platforms means that developers are likely to leave and pay money to develop their game on a competing engine.  People have gone out of their way to develop module and plugin assets for GameMaker, Unity, or other engines that replicate what we can already do natively in AGS.  Aside from that, there are some things that AGS does not do natively that other engines can do.  Parallax Scrolling is one example from the video linked above about the Adventure Creator, and even that does not provide a Dialogue System.  There is money in these assets, so there is obviously a market for an updated AGS engine.  And yes, it costs money to create a new version with these export functions and modules as native capabilities.

A Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, maybe even a supporting Patreon afterwards, would go a long way towards helping to fund a "Next-Gen" version of AGS.  Additional monetization features could include things like the aforementioned $1 charge to upload to the database.  It is conceivable that a future AGS website could actually host game files, maybe even create a marketplace in which AGS games could be sold.  Having said all of that, remember to keep everything competitive.  As I said before, AGS has traditionally been a free platform for development.  If you can offer the base engine with Windows and Mac exports for something like $50, that would be reasonable and competitive considering the market.  Add exports for around $10 a piece, or a version that contains all exports for about $100.  I'm kind of spitballing here, but I don't think that these prices are unreasonable to pay, nor do I think they are too small to make it worthwhile.  I think it's a great compromise model that would prevent Adventure Game developers from going to alternative engines like GameMaker or Unity.

I admit that I'm looking at this from the point of view of a consumer, and someone who has only completed one small AGS project, but I'll also bet that many who chose AGS as their engine did so from a similar perspective.  If not that, then the nostalgia of Adventure Games or the community drew people to the engine.  All of these things could still be huge factors in an evolved AGS, in my opinion.

Snarky

#21
Quote from: Screen 7 on Sat 15/04/2017 01:39:50
Heh, no sugar coating. But this is what, the 3rd, 4th or maybe 5th time CW has raised these concerns? I wonder how many times a concern has to be raised before people start to listen. Like, how many times does your kid need to tell you they're being bullied before you do something about it? That kind of thing (obviously not quite the same scale, but certainly the same principle). Clearly, telling CW he's doing a great job every time he raises this concern isn't actually cutting it in terms of a solution.

Right, people don't listen. Like how he has also repeatedly stated that he's not interested in getting paid and don't see it as a solution, but somehow every time this topic comes up that's what some people keep harping on.

For example:

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 01/02/2016 12:06:49
You bring everything to payment. I find this terribly annoying. This never had anything to do with payment.
It could have if I knew that I was doing things right. But I didn't. So this is not an issue.

dactylopus

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 15/04/2017 07:00:30
Quote from: Screen 7 on Sat 15/04/2017 01:39:50
Heh, no sugar coating. But this is what, the 3rd, 4th or maybe 5th time CW has raised these concerns? I wonder how many times a concern has to be raised before people start to listen. Like, how many times does your kid need to tell you they're being bullied before you do something about it? That kind of thing (obviously not quite the same scale, but certainly the same principle). Clearly, telling CW he's doing a great job every time he raises this concern isn't actually cutting it in terms of a solution.

Right, people don't listen. Like how he has also repeatedly stated that he's not interested in getting paid and don't see it as a solution, but somehow every time this topic comes up that's what some people keep harping on.

For example:

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 01/02/2016 12:06:49
You bring everything to payment. I find this terribly annoying. This never had anything to do with payment.
It could have if I knew that I was doing things right. But I didn't. So this is not an issue.

In that case, then I would say that CW may in fact be wasting time continuing his attempts to develop AGS.  There's really nothing more that can be done with the current engine (outside of creating a stable version of what we have, if possible) as long as the following is true:

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 13/04/2017 19:10:09
It will soon be FIVE years as I work on it, and haven't yet reach much of the goals we set up when we started. It is still old tech, still mostly software drawing, still no unicode support, and so on and so on.
And project is practically dead. with nearly zero organization, no planning, and no one willing to contribute.

Am I using my time for good purpose, or just wasting it? The efficiency of my work here is incredibly low. People are leaving for other better engines all the time.

So then there's this portion of the post:

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 13/04/2017 19:10:09
Yes, maybe I can try to force some more stuff in AGS, but what's the point? I will never be able to do anything even closely as good.


I think, the only reason why I am still here was that always felt the urge to prove that I can do something good. Since I was failing to reach the defined goals, it kept backfiring. In the end, I feel like I gained nothing from this work, except for endless frustration and despair.

I need to find some other work to put my efforts to, where I would be more productive.

If that's truly what it feels like to continue to work on the current engine, then please quit.  You've done a great job, despite what you may feel about those heights you were unable to reach.  I would also prefer that you found something better suited to your talents.  If that's not going to be building a new version of AGS, that's OK, I hope that you find some work that is satisfying to you.  I'd love to recruit you to work on some of the overly ambitious ideas I have, but I'm nowhere near far enough along to initiate that and I'm sure there are more capable and rewarding options out there for you.

If I'm off the mark, then maybe I just don't understand this post.  It poses a question, but seems to be more of a statement saying that CW has done as much as he can with this engine and that there are currently better options available.


Joseph DiPerla

Snarky, this line here from what you posted, unless I am misreading it:

"It could have if I knew that I was doing things right. But I didn't. So this is not an issue."

Seems to tell me that if he felt he had a superior product he was working on that  he would then feel comfortable being paid for AGS. If it's not that, then scrap it. No need for a kickstarter, no need to pay anyone. But at the same time, CW requests help, assistance and a team. Perhaps "They" would like to be compensated for their work and that makes sense. So for me, in order to keep that in line with what CJ originally intended for AGS: To keep it free to use as we pleased, maybe crowdfunding is the way to go with this to hire assistance.

Honestly, I see AGS as a complete engine now as far as features go with the exception of very few things. For example, we need a stable bug free version which can be developed in time. People seem to want a multi-platform Editor. There are lot's of ways to go with this, such as a web based editor made of HTML, Javascript and CSS. Or we can use Wine to emulate the software. A big hick up is the fact that the engine is not easily created to export your games to other OS. I haven't paid to close attention, but it seems that the Mac port is having some issues. PSP has since been abandoned. iOS and Android seem to be somewhat working, but no easy way to export the games to those OS, particularly when it comes to Expansion files. And there are other marketable OS that are still nowhere near being ported to. Had these issues however been taken care of, a lot more users would be using AGS and quite frankly, would make this a modern engine for a good 5 to 7 years. But CW seems to be unsatisfied personally with the coding conventions and such in the backbone of AGS.

With that being the case, I personally feel that we would need to embrace the future: a)Either give up AGS entirely - which would be sad as I believe the best game developers here are AGS Developers and love playing these adventures more than the ones made on other engines. b)Rewrite AGS from scratch. c)Move to a more popular platform such as Unity.

The way I see it, Unity will always be free to use and sell games up to $100K. They will always keep updating the core parts and pieces of the engine so the developers wouldn't have to. They can support cloud building and porting to all the needed OS. And there are a lot of plugins and services that a user can allow to be used with AGS for Unity. My concept would be to create an editor that looks and works very much like AGS does now, allows importing projects from 2.7 and above and keeps all the features already there as well as expand and add new ones. At the same time, a VM can be built into it to play all versions of AGS so that we can still use PlayAGSGame function within a game for use of mini games. Unity uses it's own proprietary scripting engine as well as Javascript and C#. And quite frankly, I can see it being too difficult to port AGS Script as an internal scripting language anyway. This would mean that AGS could have more powerful scripting, no limitations and higher/easier portability. Not to mention that Unity has an editor available for Mac as well and the fact that Unity is not going anywhere. Exposing AGS to the Unity community as an open source project would also mean that you are opening yourself up to a whole new world of developers that can help with development.

To me, option B or C or what I prefer. C mostly. But if we go with A, who am I to stand in the way.

And yes, we say CW did a great job because, well: HE DID. So great job again CW and thank you for all your help. I do hope you reconsider, but you also have to be happy. In the meantime, I do believe there are others who can still step in for a little until a decision is made or the project is scrapped, like Monkey or Gurok.
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
Play my Star Wars MMORPG: http://sw-bfs.com
See my Fiverr page for translation and other services: https://www.fiverr.com/josephdiperla
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Snarky

We have this discussion every 6 months, so instead of delving into old arguments again I'll try to be short:


  • Crimson Wizard, if working on the existing AGS codebase makes you so frustrated and depressed, for God's sake stop!
  • If you do want to build a new engine from scratch, either as a standalone or on top of Unity (or some other framework), you can count on our moral support.
  • If financial support would help, there are a number of us who are willing to chip in.
  • However, I wouldn't realistically expect that starting over would somehow fix the problem with lack of concrete developer contributions: it would probably still fall mostly on you and a couple of others from time to time.
  • ... that also applies to the design of the architecture/API/editor â€" any attempt to crowdsource what a new engine should be like will inevitably devolve into a hundred incompatible opinions with no overall vision.
  • I also think that making AGS no longer free would be a major mistake, and perhaps the one thing the engine/community might not survive.

Mehrdad

AGS only want exporter to Mac,Android,iOS from editor .That's all. No need to write from scratch and so on. It's individually quite and great tool with high fps.
CW, Gurok ,Monkey , Nick,Janet...Please open a plan for AGS to commercial.

100$ is really great for the best adventure game engine with 4 main platform exporter . Please see other engines with their huge prices .

Problem Solved.
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Crimson Wizard

I am sorry, it looks like I cannot hold myself at times, and this leads to those repetitive threads. I guess I am desperately looking for a help, or advice, but then not able to get ones that would suit me. Or is it because in the end I am always working on my own...

So, yes, I guess I will just stop here and work on something else.

m0ds

#28
Hold up. No need to quit the conversation just because it bothers Snarky. He may not want to discuss it more than once, but some of us are happy to.

If you could perhaps list the things that you enjoy about working on AGS and the things you do not enjoy, we could understand a little clearer your outlook on AGS as a project and look into the problem areas and their solutions, before resorting to things like commercialization, yadda yadda. You mention a lack of help perhaps? That's something for the not enjoy list...?

There is absolutely no harm in this conversation (or you registering your concern) once, twice, a hundred times. This community revolves around the work you do on the engine, don't let anyone convince you of it being any other way, or that your desire to find something that keeps you attracted to the work, as a "lesser" discussion here. And that goes to you too Snarky - stop shutting people's opinions and discussions down, you are predictably good at it.

CW, you mentioned people abandoning AGS for other engines. I saw this picture on twitter, and it reminded me that choice is an excellent thing, hopefully as applicable to you with your work on the engine as it is for me and my work on a game.


Snarky

How am I shutting down the discussion? I just explained why I don't want to get involved in a long back and forth over the merits of various proposals. I've said my piece, and everyone is free to talk to their heart's content.

Adeel

Quote from: abstauber on Thu 13/04/2017 20:17:37
Compared to PyGame:
- Functionality for non adventure games almost equal equal since we have can have full access on surfaces and controls
- No nice and free IDE (apart from Eclipse)

What about Spyder?

Joseph DiPerla

First off, Snarky, I wanted to say that I just saw your description under your avatar: "Private Insultant". AWESOME!

Back on track. It sounds like there is a reasonable amount of developers available to work with AGS. What I do notice too is that there are some games being developed that obviously come from customized versions of AGS(Wadjet Eye Games). Others seem to create their own versions of AGS rather than contributing to the main engine(Draconian). Maybe I am wrong about that? I know that in the past CW tried to incorporate Draconian features into AGS and at some point Janet released or gave us some idea of what they did with their ports. And it seems these changes are privately made due to rushing their projects along quicker than the official development team can and that is understandable.

But I think it would be more productive that if those who worked on their own versions of AGS would instead contribute to the official development. CW, if you do change your mind, you asked for advice. So here is my advice: You have AGS 3.4.1 released. Stabilize it and get rid of as many bugs as you can satisfy. Once done, pick ONE goal you want to achieve next with the engine. Don't add features. Did you want to change it over to SDL or Allegro 5? Make that the goal and specifically handle that until it is completed. Do you want to port to other OS? Then focus on that. The feature list of AGS is still advanced enough that it does not require so many little additions to be added. So stop working on that and focus on ONE big goal and get everyone involved to help you achieve it. I think you mentioned that you hoped that the ports were working properly before continuing on anything else. If I can ask, how difficult would it be to move the project to Allegro 5? It seems to have an updated core system and can be ported to various OS with less effort than it would to do it with 4.2. Looking at it's feature set, you might be able to add new features far quicker than before. I am not a C++ programmer and honestly, at the moment I am working on my Star Wars RPG and a couple of text adventures and apps. But I would love to know that if I decide to ever actually make an adventure game, AGS will still be here.

I have used Visionaire, Adventure Creator, Wintermute, Sludge... All great in their own way(Yum Cake as was mentioned above). Adventure creator best of that pack. Superb engine. But it is $70 and even though it has a "no programming necessary" approach, AGS is still easier to use believe it or not. And AGS 2D Features for a 2d Point and Click game are amazing and more advanced in my opinion.

Just my thoughts.
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
Play my Star Wars MMORPG: http://sw-bfs.com
See my Fiverr page for translation and other services: https://www.fiverr.com/josephdiperla
Google Plus Adventure Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/116504865864458899575

Andail

We (read Joel) use Ags and since Joel is a real game programmer who used to work with big game companies I can only assume that Ags is useful in ways other engines/studios aren't.
I know that CW repeatedly claims money isn't issue, but mayne a yearly or biannual thread of appreciation and recognition is enough, because if the question is simply "do people use it?" then the answer is clearly yes. So maybe getting pro developers to pay money is an idea that at least hasn't been tested. I'd be up for it. Those interested in maintaining and working with the engine for money could then do so.

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Joseph DiPerla on Sat 15/04/2017 17:29:58What I do notice too is that there are some games being developed that obviously come from customized versions of AGS(Wadjet Eye Games).

As far as I know, Wadjet Eye's version is only different in the sense that they have an OSX/iOS ports being continiously updated and fixed in their branch. Other than that, they are using the official engine core, and keep merging with latest versions. Even when I was speaking with Janet about some of her requests, she said that her wish it to have these developed inside official version; and ones that were completed actually ended up there.

Hobo

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 13/04/2017 19:10:09
Does it make any sense to develop AGS further? It will soon be FIVE years as I work on it...
Lots of things don't really make any sense when you think about them too hard, yet people still do these things and even keep fighting for them.
But has supporting and developing the engine during these 5 years been useful and beneficial? Absolutely. I think it's one of the reasons this community is still active and still attracting new people. Personally, I would not make a commercial game with AGS 3.2.1, but thanks to all the added features and little adjustments, the latest AGS versions feel like legitimate options. Obviously it would be helpful (at least for me) is this sort of development continued, but no one should feel or be obligated to do so, especially for free or alone.

I feel very unsure about a paid version of the engine itself as some people are suggesting, but I'm all for crowdfunding, donations, patreon or a licencing fee for commercial products if there's a reason for it and the money is used purposefully.

LimpingFish

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 15/04/2017 15:07:05

  • Crimson Wizard, if working on the existing AGS codebase makes you so frustrated and depressed, for God's sake stop!
  • If you do want to build a new engine from scratch, either as a standalone or on top of Unity (or some other framework), you can count on our moral support.
  • If financial support would help, there are a number of us who are willing to chip in.
  • However, I wouldn't realistically expect that starting over would somehow fix the problem with lack of concrete developer contributions: it would probably still fall mostly on you and a couple of others from time to time.
  • ... that also applies to the design of the architecture/API/editor â€" any attempt to crowdsource what a new engine should be like will inevitably devolve into a hundred incompatible opinions with no overall vision.
  • I also think that making AGS no longer free would be a major mistake, and perhaps the one thing the engine/community might not survive.

This.

I think it's a fallacy to equate a renewed AGS with a renewed community or a sudden influx of developer interest.

To be honest, I don't get you're being so tough on the current state of AGS, engine and community, m0ds. As far as I know, there was never a proposed road map to take AGS from a hobbyist platform to some form of commercial development "brand", like Unreal or Unity. I get that you'd like to see such a change, but that doesn't mean that it's automatically right or logically inevitable. Just because some people who developed freeware adventures in the past now produce commercial products, shouldn't mean that the whole community should aspire to do so, or that not doing so makes them short-sighted procrastinators who are holding everyone else, and the engine, back. It's also doesn't mean that those with commercial aspirations should be bound to using AGS, when they might find other, more suitable engines elsewhere. If their project outgrows AGS, then it would make more sense to find a new engine, rather than demand AGS wrap itself in knots to try and accommodate them. Some may see this as a negative attitude, or a lack of vision, but...hey.

AGS is open-source, and has been for some time now, so there's no stopping people from developing their own branches with features that interest them. If we are to continue an "official" build of the engine, we'd probably do well to strip out all the suggested features and improvements that haven't been given at least cursory implementation, and steamline the development process to something achievable.

I think Crimson Wizard, if he is to stay, would also do well to set some form of finish line for the 3.x build.
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Calin Leafshade

I know I haven't been around for a while but the main reason I come back to AGS every so often is simply the speed I can get results.

Adventure Creator has the same problems every other unity frankenstein has: butchered concepts to fit a use case.
Scripting in adventure game engines is always hard because you essentially have two threads of execution, the game logic and the engine logic.
AGS's solution to this is just so damn easy to work with.

You want that in Love2D? you need coroutines.
Want that in Unity? Coroutines or threads.

In AGS you just chain your commands and you're golden. If you want some concurrency you can use rep_ex_always. It's just so fucking easy.

There are people who have made good games with AGS who don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to programming and there is just no other engine in which that is possible.

The strength of AGS doesn't lie in its antique codebase, it lies in the fundamental design choices.

What you need is AGS4. (4GS?)

Danvzare

I keep hearing people harping on about wanting a rewrite of the AGS engine. A commercial one, which costs money and so on.
And all that keeps coming to mind is that there already is one. It's called Visionaire Studio. Has everyone forgotten that, or is there something wrong with that engine?

Joseph DiPerla

It's not as good. And it's licensing scheme is absolutely ridiculous.
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
Play my Star Wars MMORPG: http://sw-bfs.com
See my Fiverr page for translation and other services: https://www.fiverr.com/josephdiperla
Google Plus Adventure Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/116504865864458899575

Problem

#39
Let's assume for a moment that money is an issue - Crimson Wizard says it isn't, but let's pretend for a moment that it is. People asking to sell AGS don't seem to know how this open source thing works. A commercial version of AGS would pretty much split the community. The current version of AGS is open source and free, and that can't be undone. Not sure about the licensing details, but there are many contributors, so selling anything that's based on the old code would be making money from other people's work. Okay, so it would have to be complete rewrite then. But then the old version wouldn't disappear. Maybe some commercial developers would buy this rewrite, but most hobbyists would just continue using the old version, because it still does the job well and it's free - so why would they buy a new version? Maybe some people would even keep maintaining the open source version. The end result would be two different AGS branches with two different user bases - do we really want that? And I'm pretty sure the commercial version wouldn't sell very well in this situation.

So if money is an issue (again: Crimson Wizard says it isn't), then donations, Patreon, Kickstarter etc. would be the only options that make sense to me - collecting funds for a new open source version. Not sure if this would be enough. But in my opinion selling AGS itself would do more harm to the community than it would help.

I have no idea if anyone would be interested and willing to start a new (free) AGS from scratch. But let's face it, the developer(s) are struggling, because the AGS code base seems to have reached its limits. That's not a bad thing, because for most non-commercial developers AGS still works very well, and that won't change any time soon, so there's no need to panic. Maybe starting from scratch is only way out of this situation. But in my opinion, for reasons mentioned above, a commercial version is not the way to go.

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