signaljacker's Forum Posts

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    After the many posts and the locked thread, it seems the best option for Construct users now is to wait and see how the subscription turns out. Scirra really wants to try it, and if it works out then that's great for them (and us) !

    If not, they'll hopefully have a backup plan ready in time

    But, I would say it will be one or two years from now before we know for sure (eg: many people might try one or two years before trying something else, so it's still pretty risky for Scirra if big/long-term projects aren't being made).

    That's okay though, we've all been waiting many years already for HTML5 to be the high performance multi-platform export format of choice for 2D gaming anyway, what's the harm of waiting a few more?

    The problem with this I think is that at the moment there is actually very little incentive to subscribe. The overlap between C2 and C3 is vast, and who knows how long it will take C3 to mature enough plugin wise for many to transfer their projects over? I say this as someone who is knee deep in 3 projects, all of which use plugins qhich quite frankly should be part of the base construct package. If I subscribe in the near future I'll pretty much just be throwing $99 away (or whatever discount I get from being a customer) the only incentive to subscription at the moment is support of Scirra's vision, but unfortunately some of this vision I'm not interested in. I think people will continue to discuss and criticise this model and that won't go away. We're not stirring a frenzy, the fact is it doesn't fit the needs or wants of the greater community.

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    I think it's pretty obvious if you ask a question which amounts to "do you want to pay more or less?" people are going to click the "less" option. Or if you ask "what other payment models should Scirra use?" the answer will be "the one I hardly have to pay anything at all". The business has to also at least survive, and ideally be able to keep improving the product.

    I don't think the poll really shows that, there is no price on the one time payment so who says it's cheaper? It just demonstrates that people don't want to rent software. If you charged $500 for C3 and I could buy it outright, I wouldn't even hesitate. Bang, it would be bought. You've already proven yourselves to be excellent developers with C2 and I want to continue using that kind of workflow. And you'd have 5 years of 'subscription' money from me straight away, you wouldn't even need to wait for it. With a rental system, I am hesitating a lot. Very ambivalent. Most of your critics of the rental system don't want your company to fail, we want it to keep improving and want to keep being a part of it and in a lot of cases money hasn't really got anything to do with it, it's the direction it's going that is the problem. But that's just me, someone else in the community might be horrified at paying $500 up front for a piece of software, or might not be able to afford it etc. It will be impossible to keep everyone happy.

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    My Problem with scirra is that they are calling it a subscription, but it really is renting.

    Here is a subscription:

    https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=477140

    you pay and you get 12 months of software upgrades and support, thats it

    Construct 3 is very different - you pay for access <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

    Ashley might decide to put out less software updates/features, while the user has no choice but to continue to pay in order to get access to the software.

    It feels like they are misleading the users a little bit on some points too. The export in construct is still pretty bad compared to many other engines, so the price tag of 100$ per year is definitely not justified.

    You're right, if you get a magazine subscription for a year, at the end of that year the magazines stop coming but you don't have to give back the ones you've already bought.

    I think the Bitwig model is fair. They did get slammed for it from a chunk of their userbase as well, but it is a necessary evil. I think this model is fairer to both users and developers, Scirra's is not.

  • Can you post a .capx and I'll have a look. It's hard to tell as there are many different ways it could be done so need to see your door mechanic first. One might be to have a variable on the door itself which is toggled when the player accesses it and depending on its state takes you to the correct place.

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    > winkr7

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    > —

    > I preferred the new subscription model from the very beginning, because in my humble opinion, it will secure the future development of our favourite game development tool.

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    Pretty much. Subscription = sustainable development.

    It doesn't have to be though, give the product a 5 year lifecycle and charge $500 up front for it - or 'rent to own' it for 5 years at $100 a year. I would much prefer this to a subscription. However I think due to the nature of C3 (ongoing server costs) this kind of model wouldn't be possible, and that's where Scirra have shot themselves in the foot. The nature of C3 boxes it into a very narrow set of options - which basically forces a subscription.

  • TheZinc - you need the code to set the player to the position in the new layout you've just loaded, not the previous one. What I do is have a global variable that keeps track of what side of the screen the player exited from on the layout previous, so North, South, East and West - then when it goes to the next layout it checks what the previous door was and set the player accordingly - eg if the player exited from an East door last screen it will set them to a West entry on the next, and if they exited from a North door it will set them to a South entry.

  • I haven't worked with Spriter and a lot of characters on screen at once, but it shouldn't be too hard to test. I just tried to but I've always found Spriter to be a bit temperamental and I may not have the latest plugin installed so wasn't able to get it going but my suggestion would be to download a pre-rigged spriter character (this can be done from one of the menus in spriter), load it into construct. And then at the start of the layout make a loop that duplicates the object x times at a random position on the screen and sets an animation. Then see how that runs, it should give you a pretty good idea. Obviously performance will also be dependant on how many unique sprites you're using, but it will at least give you a decent idea of the overhead that the rigging/animation uses.

  • It does feel better, maybe a combination of things. That last blog post certainly helped I think. And maybe some of us got some stuff off our chests in the megathreads that have been happening the past couple of days, but also saw things from different perspectives. Anyway I think the future is looking a bit brighter.

  • Thanks guys, I appreciate the clarification - I just wanted to make 100% sure. I can work with that

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  • Apologies if this has already been answered, but if it has I must have missed it. Currently testing the free beta, opening up one of the example games it displays a warning that the game exceeds the free version limits and some features will not be available. I'm assuming that's in relation to editing the game itself, but if you preview or debug the game it plays correctly (without limitations?). Am I right in assuming that if I were to stop subscribing to C3 but had worked on a project that exceeded the free limits, I would be able to open it up and still look at it properly? I wouldn't need to export it, or even edit it - but I would like to be able to look at the structure, and also play the game (by pressing the preview button) for personal use. The answer to this will likely be my deciding factor in subbing. Thanks.

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    I Started out in CC and moved to C2 early on, still working in CC for a while until C2 had matured sufficiently. I work on big, multi-year projects.

    At the moment I probably won't subscribe. When the software is a fair bit more mature than C2 currently is I may revisit it, however by then I may have found a more suitable replacement for my needs. I was not even remotely interested in looking at other game creation software before, but now I am actively researching it. If F3, or Godot or Gamemaker or Unity really don't click with me I will probably return to Construct, but unfortunately in its current form it's unappealing to me. Time will tell, but I will probably wait until it matures further and also see if the subscripton is eventually tweaked or discarded entirely.

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    > I would say that getting this community more involved would be a great start. Conducting direct polls and really having a way for supporters to give feedback.

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    This has worked against us in the past. The multiplayer feature was massively voted for, but from the data we look at, very few people actually use it. So the hype effect is a big distorting factor in polls. I don't regret it, it was a super interesting project to work on, but it's something to bear in mind, and is the main reason I have avoided polls since then.

    Having said that, we do have a feature-voting system planned anyway but I am going to strongly caveat it with warnings that "votes are not a guarantee of implementation", for exactly the reason we had with multiplayer. Also I can easily imagine things like 3D becoming #1 voted features, and there are a wide range of reasons why we're holding off on that.

    Glad to see that there is a feature voting system planned. Could one possible solution be to have users submit requests, but these be collated and curated by Scirra who then select several which are in line with your objectives with C3 and then the community votes on those? That way you still have control, but we have a good idea of what's coming and are still influencing the direction of the product to a degree. Just an idea anyway, I understand opening it up to everybody would be chaos, but I think that some sort of dialogue between Scirra and its customers on features is still important.

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    > Pretty much misses the point completely!

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    > If Scirra is listening you would have heard most of the C2 users do not want a browser based subscription engine.

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    So you expect them to throw away their work of the past few years, because suddenly people decide they do not want the editor to work on multiple systems?

    Or when exactly do you the no people started to complain about the browser based thing?

    Sorry, but even when not wanting to subscribe for C3 right now myself, some of your statements are outright harsh and unfair regarding the team at Scirra.

    Nobody takes away what you paid for with C2, where you got updates for free for more than 5 years.

    I'm pretty sure they read and know all of the complaints, but whatever they would do there will be people that are frustrated with the decision. We all need to calm down and just see where things are going.

    I think if they had been a bit more strategic and less secretive about the whole thing they wouldn't now be stuck with a huge alienated userbase and a product that doesn't fit. Had they openly asked the community what they thought of a browser based subscription system, they would probably get much of the same answers they're getting now and they wouldn't have wasted all that time investing in it. What it comes down to - are they making it for us or them? They seem to be making it for them - and that's fine at the start, but this is the third iteration of their software, people have expectations based on their previous versions and to mix it up and announce 2 bombshells like that a mere 2 months before the beta no wonder people are putrid about it. They have also been offered many well thought out suggestions for tailoring their subscription system so that it is win win for both their customers and themselves and these seem to fall on completely deaf ears. It's one thing to have a vision and stick to it, but there is also stubbornness and pride and if they could drop some of that we'd probably all end up with a better product.

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    signaljacker

    So actually, Scirra would probably do way better by doing an event sheet plugin for other editors, since they can't cater for the other needs by many of the developers here?

    The event sheet is the only reason I chose C2 and still sticking with it. I don't have time, energy, and willpower to learn any coding language. So I kind of have to live with the limited export options in favor doing any game at all... lol.

    They would probably do very well I'm sure, but they've built up a nice empire here and are obviously very ambitious and talented. I would like for them to succeed with their own product, but I also think that to do so listening to the community is very valuable. I'm in the same boat as you, without the time or inclination to properly learn to code. I'm comfortable with the event sheet and would love to continue to use it. I can forgive Construct a lot, even having to jump through the many hoops because of its quirks. But to see the dev team so out of touch with its core community really worries me.

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    When you have a game you want to develop, I think it's better to chose the tool right for the job, than expecting your tool to adopt to your needs. Your best bet is to chose an engine that is specifically designed for your purpose and does it well.

    So back to my first question. If you want to do Console Games, why do you chose, C2/C3?, it's not designed for it. And consoles are generally not designed to run HTML5 games.

    It's like choosing MS paint to do advanced photo editing like what you would do in Photoshop.

    It's a fair point, but I think it comes back to Construct having a bit of an identity crisis - perhaps partly because of its legacy with Construct Classic. I'm developing purely for Windows desktop, and you'd think it would be simple right? Nope. What is C2 actually good for exporting to? Not desktop, not mobile. Browser games, but who plays those? It's like having a Rolls Royce but only being able to drive it up the drive way. I think what the devs are failing to realize is that people are here because of the workflow, not the tech. People aren't attracted to Construct because it's html 5 based - it's the great workflow.