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Roadmap Udpate
moopf
Guru
On the 3rd September on the Open Letter thread, @gorkem said that he'd be collating responses to questions and come up with a "prompt response" and in another post on the same day: "One more consolidation / action items post in a few days". In addition, on the 4th, @deniz specifically said that an announcement would be made about "roadmap issues".
It is now two weeks later, have either of these happened? I don't seem to be able to find anything.
It is now two weeks later, have either of these happened? I don't seem to be able to find anything.
Comments
Roadmap has been updated http://bugs.giderosmobile.com/projects/gideros-studio-sdk/roadmap
Now it only contains short term planned things (for next release only)
Haven't seen @gorkem in the forum lately though
http://www.nightspade.com
In fact, nothing has changed on the Roadmap in the last 16 days.
You did not miss the announcement. We are still discussing our future features internally. Features that will be available in the next release has been already decided. Some of the (near future) features are decided but not announced, yet.
We will be publishing our plans next week.
Dislikes: hassan
I look forward to seeing the plans next week.
As the team have mentioned elsewhere, they are a small team working their nut's off (not literally but you get the idea) to make a product and a business for themselves, their family and their future, all whilst trying to balance family life, the need to pay a mortgage, put food on the table, find time to hug the kids and the occasional need for a holiday.
Gideros IS expanding, perhaps not quickly enough for everyone's liking BUT at the end of the day we get and work with what were given and NOT the promise of the thing yet to come.
If Gideros in it's current state suits your needs and works for you then great, use it and stop hassling the guys, if it's not yet ready for what you need, go away and come back in six months, it'll still be here.
You have to accept that Gideros is what Gideros is - a middleware solution for providing an easy way to write cross platform 2D games on iOS / Android - if it never get's another update for the rest of it's life then it's still good enough for a lot of people and for those who it's not - well maybe they should be looking elsewhere for other solutions (or rolling their own).
Yes it HAS the capability to be great, in the same way that you and I have the capabilities to become multi-millionaire app developers, what's stopping us is NOT the tools we have at our disposal (or moaning about them), but taking what we've got, applying some (lots of) hard work and working to continually improve - a process which takes time, especially for two and half people with family commitments to boot.
Asking the team for firm dates is counter productive, they can't give you those dates any more than they can predict the future (or tell me next weeks lottery numbers) - a small team HAS to be flexible, HAS to adapt, HAS to be able to respond to bugs, queries, HAS to be able to raise enough cash to continue (which means being flexible and changing plans if needs be).
IF they did release dates like that, 1) it'd stress them out having to hit deadline after deadline, 2) it'd never be enough, people would always want more and 3) one missed deadline and all of a sudden the today's golden boy's become yesterday's nobodies with all the previous best efforts forgotten.
What have YOU done to promote Gideros (and or the community) today, you wrote a few lines of code and thought about YOUR business, working to secure YOUR future (the same as the rest of us) - well the team are doing the same, but THEIR business is to make a tool that others can use - others who should just accept the tool for WHAT IT IS, and WHAT IT DOES NOW. Not what it might do in the future.
Jon...
@Atilim - please disregard any previous or future squeaks I might make (or have ever made) about render to texture or any other feature / request. IF they ever arrive I'll be happy to use them (I have plenty of ideas), if not ...
Likes: phongtt, paul_k_clark, twisttap
Dislikes: moopf
#MakeABetterGame! "Never give up, Never NEVER give up!" - Winston Churchill
I'll keep an eye on Gideros from a distance.
@techdojo, @moopf
I started the Open letter discussion myself, so I understand that people can disagree on the subject but I don't see anything wrong about asking for a status update.
It's true that annoying the developers and putting pressure on their shoulders is not the most constructive thing to do, but on the other hand I don't think that @moopf crossed the line.
@moopf asked for a status update (like I did), and underlined some facts ("consolidation / action items post in a few days" was not posted).
He also said without that it's impossible to understand whether Gideros will support the features in a timeframe suitable for a developer's needs. which is something that I share and I am probably not the only one.
It's more a fact than an opinion. What can we expect from Gideros in the future and how should we adjust/stretch our needs to exploit the framework as much as possible and create better apps?
I didn't read anything here that was disrespecting the work done by the dev team.
I have a lot of appreciation for Gideros and the work done by the team, but I don't see anything wrong with a member of the community asking for a status update - even more when some of us were (in a positive way) waiting for the announcement to be done.
About release dates, same : I think that there is nothing wrong with asking.
If the team says "Sorry we can't give firm dates on when to expect the releases" then this is an additional information, still.
@techdojo
We agree on a lot of things and this is just my feeling about the situation.
I don't know @moopf personally but I know he has spread the word about Gideros in a recent past, and has supported the team by buying a license in the early days (we have to admit that doing it shows that you put a lot of trust in a young product).
I would be part of the members that defend Gideros if some people bash it without any constructive reasons, but this time I don't think that participants to this conversation crossed the line.
@moopf
I don't think that this is the best thing to do (leave the forum) but I understand that you might have less interest in the current status of the product if you need those informations to take your business further.
Sorry to see you go, and looking forward that you come back around here in the future.
Hoping that everyone will take all of it less emotionally and focus on app dev,
I am also looking forward to reading the announcement.
Likes: paul_k_clark
I don't know @moopf personally but I don't see there ever being a need for NOT being polite especially to people you don't know or your not looking at "face to face" - it's too easy given the anonymous nature of the internet to forget the avatar on the other side is actually a living, breathing person with feelings, a life and an agenda of their own. My philosophy (in as much as I can stick to it) is to talk to people and treat others as if I was talking to my wife, my parents or my children. If I wouldn't speak to them like that why should I speak to you like that - don't you deserve that much respect as well?
If @moopf want's to leave the forum that's his decision, as you said it'd would be a shame to see him go, I'm certainly not interested in promoting any form of argument with anyone (I've got too much code to write and too little time to write it), any public forum can benefit from people who want to help and contribute in a productive manner.
Just my $0.02
Jon...
#MakeABetterGame! "Never give up, Never NEVER give up!" - Winston Churchill
I paid for this product the day the option was available to show support, but progress forwards with it has been slow since then and, as I see it, limitations I brought up 5 months ago are still here. I'm now in a position where I have to make a decision on a client project that is starting imminently and I absolutely need timescales to see if Gideros will keep pace with my needs on it. That's perfectly legitimate to ask as it has a big knock on effect for me as to whether I go forwards with Gideros, and hope I'm not let down, or move to a different system - which takes even more of my time getting up to speed on in addition to the development work on the project itself. But I will do that if I'm not confident that Gideros will deliver in time and the chances of me coming back to Gideros then are slim - I don't have the time to keep flipping between development systems. Is that so difficult to understand?
Honestly I'd wish this thread would just die now - I'm really not interested in being in a forum where you're railed against for asking a legitimate question. It's pathetic.
http://www.giderosmobile.com/DevCenter/index.php/Forum_FAQ
(It would be nice to have a place on the website which gathers all these libraries together, however.)
The Wax framework has recently been ported to Gideros (see recent discussions) so you can literally do ANYTHING on iOS that Apple allows!
I'm struggling to think of anything you can't do on Gideros...
https://github.com/gideros/gideros
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnBlackburn1975
As far as I'm concerned Gideros is ready for prime time right now (and has been for some time). Other people's (including @moopf's) mileage may vary.
best regards
I would NEVER take on a project where I don't know if I or the tool I use is up to the task NOW! That could cost you money, not gain it.
Likes: techdojo
- Masking. See this thread from Feb: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/462/some-questions-on-gideros
- Clipping. See this thread from Feb: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/462/some-questions-on-gideros
- Lack of Android in-app purchases. Lots of threads where I've talked about this - it's an issue that doesn't sit well with cross-platform development.
- Render to texture. See this thread from Feb (there are others as well): http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/3248
- The ability to use downloaded textures with automatic screen scaling (this was not possible when I asked the question and I see nothing to suggest it is available now). See this thread from March as an explanation of why this doesn't work: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/593/ipad-3-and-art-assets
- Better texture memory management. Everything is loaded as 32-bit, no option to conserve memory using 16-bit where appropriate. See this thread from Feb: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/462/some-questions-on-gideros
- Audio positioning (specifically limited left/right panning). See this thread from Feb: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/462/some-questions-on-gideros
- Cross-platform native keyboard support. I'm sure I've seen a plugin for iOS, but haven't seen one for Android, but could well be wrong (see below on Android plugins)
Plus more that I can't remember at the moment. I'm pretty much fully aware of the capabilities of Gideros and the limitations. Much of this I consider core, not optional, in order to produce something with polish. But that might be where the control I need to produce the best app I can doesn't fit with the higher level of Gideros itself.
Wax is of no interest to me. I'm after cross-platform facilities, not things tied to an individual OS, that's the *only* reason for me using a package like Gideros - I'd just develop natively for iOS otherwise as I've done plenty of times before. That's also why most existing plugins are of little use to me and, as I'm not a Java developer and have no interest in being one at the moment, I'm certainly not going to invest time in learning that in order to fill the gaps. If I wanted something and was just concentrating on iOS and it wasn't available I'd write a plugin, but I'm not.
So, whilst you may not be able to think of anything that Gideros can't do, it really depends on what level of polish you want and what you want to achieve or whether it's just about getting something done regardless, warts and all. That's not me and, although there are always trade-offs in development, these seem too huge at the moment for me on this point to take the risk.
I guess reading that through it's really my problem, not Gideros', as I allowed myself to get an expectation based on the replies I was getting back in Feb/March, and it was most likely an expectation that would never have been reached as I don't think I'm the type of developer that Gideros is really aiming at (any maybe Gideros themselves didn't know at the time, which is understandable). I think I need something constructed at a lower-level in the core (like Moai, for instance) and it's unfair of me to expect that from Gideros, I understand that now.
But I actually prefer Gideros for a variety of reasons, which is why I, selfishly I will admit, wanted to see it progress much quicker than it has. It's also why I used it recently for a client prototype as well - for that it definitely has its place.
Cross platform systems are a compromise: you get to write the code only once but the downside is you can only use a subset of available features. Steve Jobs railed against cross platform because he was the world's ultimate perfectionist. But remember, for all his genius, Jobs never wrote a program himself. Those who do know the world of coding is often a compromise -- and no one uses the full API feature set in every project.
Regarding clipping and masking, yes, these would be very good to have. They are not a dealbreaker for me but I can see they could be for others.
Audio positioning? I really can't see this is very important. How many games on the app store have this? People who play casual games surely don't expect so much polish as this!
https://github.com/gideros/gideros
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnBlackburn1975
When our goals / needs and requirements are aligned with the goals / needs/ requirements of the development team then WE are happy, when they don't WE make requests - not all requests can be satisfied, some are even counter productive.
Yes requests ARE important - but they are just REQUESTS nothing more, they give the team a guideline as to what's working, what's needed and what direction they might want to take - but when you get conflicting requests which direction should you go? Only the team can make that decision and WE are not party to all of the information that they have or their decision making process, so from our LIMITED perspective it might seem as if our requests are being ignored or been pushed back for whatever reason.
The only way to be truly happy with Gideros is to take it at face value - if what it DOES NOW works for you then throw down your cash and party, if not look elsewhere or find some way to work within the limited framework.
@Moopf - This is NOT directed at you so please don't take offence, this is meant for everyone and anyone who makes a feature REQUEST and who might forget that the teams goals are not necessarily aligned with their own for whatever reason.
#MakeABetterGame! "Never give up, Never NEVER give up!" - Winston Churchill
On audio, I'm sorry but this always makes me laugh. It's amazing how many people say audio positioning isn't important on mobile devices. It seems myself and my family are unusual in using headphones a lot! Audio really is often an after thought for many amateur developers, and gratingly so. Why it's discounted so much is beyond me, it can add so much to a game. It helps create an environment, immersion and expression. Simple left/right panning of sound effects is the basic that should be supported. As so many developers discount it, I can only presume that's the reason nobody calls for it in development systems that don't support it (and many already do)
As for how many use it on the app store, I bet many more than you realise because it's not something you should need to brag about. Next time you play a game on headphones listen to see if you can hear positioning differences in the audio - if you can, bingo, they're doing it. I did in my last game but you wouldn't know unless you had headphones on and it's hardly a feature to shout about in a game - it's a given! But it adds so much.
Also, next time you listen to a piece of music understand how much the separation on left and right channels adds to what you're listening to. If every constituent part of a track was positioned centrally it wouldn't sound half as good.
A lot of games on the app store use this feature and it makes a difference.
Some of the people who play casual games also expect as much polish as this.
There are, "probably", a lot more type of apps than casual games.
Because you don't see this as important doesn't mean you can stretch it and be so affirmative ("People who play casual games surely don't expect so much polish as this").
Don't take offense, but as a rule of thumb it's advised to look beyond our own scope of perception and understanding before being so affirmative.
It really surprises me that the importance of audio positioning is questioned here.
In my opinion there is too much energy spent here to question the legitimacy of those feature requests.
Now I'm waiting for more news from team Gideros.
Most of my questions and concerns from the Open Letter discussion (I don't put the link on purpose) are still in my mind and, as the team has probably been working hard on the subject, I am waiting for more detailed news and announcements.
As requested by @moopf, it should be the time that this discussion dies and the accepted answer was already given, so let's wait for next week.