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A man is sitting at his computer desk typing away at the keyboard. You see a gold encrusted ring with an S on top on his right hand. His cat jumps up on the desk. "Well Fluffy, I have done all that I can with this program. Until the fixes are in place and it's more stable, I can't go on" The man hits the enter key. He is done. He gets up and turns off Computer. The cat meows and jumps off the desk. The man turns off the light. The S on the his ring goes dark.
SoulMan

I know the feeling, SoulMan. However, I'm not at the point you are at...yet.

I spent a few hours yesterday working on a level, an outdoor level (compound) with a guard tower on each corner of the compound. Imagine my surprise when I found the ladders for the guard towers were not included in V1.

Just a little frustrating.

im going to demand my money back if i dont get wat I want.

Whoa there. This isn't about demands.
SoulMan

@M1rkD1rk: Yeah man, there's a demo - if you don't like the demo don't buy the program and then demand your money back.

Anyway, sorry to hear you fell like this, SoulMan. I'm sure FPSC will egt a lot better in the future, don't totally give up yet.

No, it's not about demands at all. But, at the same time it's definately not about TGC doing us all some big favor either. The latter seems to be a prevelent 'theme' on the forum here.

I'm sure things will get worked out...eventually. I'm not too worried about, especially after some serious revenue starts to be generated at TGC. It will either be a big success, and TGC will see the value in increasing support/expansion or it will be a massive success and TGC will get gobbled up by a larger company that will mainstream FPSC.

SoulMan,

Sorry to hear this. You have been here a long time and a loyal supporter of FPSC. Its frustrating I know - some I am sure had expected more stability amomngst other things from V1 allowing a smooth development pipeline and less hassle.

I understand you may feel there are numerous obstacles of a serious nature. What have you found to be issues of such a magnitude to bring you to this decision?

I just wonder if you are going to cotinue with gamemaking what options you have. There are few indie engines around which are actually very helpful to small groups or individual developers. Most are not at all helpful offering as many difficulties as advantages. The choice is pretty abismal in the 21st century.

Still good luck with your endeavours.

Hope to see you back here sometime or around the circuits.

Looks like I've opened pandora's box here.
Let me explain how I got to this conclusion and what I plan to do.

FPSCreator when it was first announced sounded like a promising product in which I could at least create my own games, give them out for fun or sell them. The videos looked good and while I knew there was going to be some limits to the system, it could possibly be dealt with.

However, after V1 was released, I realized in it's current form, it's still not exactly what I wanted in a game creation program. I was on the beta test which I'm glad to have been a part of. I reported some issues on the system and found one really bad bug with the timer system. I think some of the other beta testers will agree that it was released a bit too soon. We were figuring at least a November release . However Lee did keep to his word of a September release. I knew he was the gun to get it out by then and figured that he could fix the bugs that cropped up.

I got my copy on September 8th/9th(Can't remember exact time) and got my Physical copy on September 19th. The very first thing I did was test the program out with Sci-Fi level 1. I got this problem.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=60472&b=21
If you take a look at the pic I included in the message you will notice a really big problem with the shader. Before this release, in one of the last beta releases that took place, shaders looked very good on my system. I have what I call and you might call, a very decent machine.

Athlon 64 3400+ Socket 754
1 Gigabyte of Memory
BFGTech GeForce 6800GT 256Megabyte Video Card
Sound Blaster X-Fi Sound Card

After seeing the results as they were, I realized FPSCreator is just not going to work out for me. While Lee did a good job with the program making it work for the most part and putting in things like Physic's into the system, I think it's still not ready for prime time. Here are some of the issues I am having with it. I will go into greater detail than the review I did. I hope this sheds some light on what might and should be done to FPSCreator to help it out.

Game Menu - The game menu is currently lacking several features that would make it a complete system. Such as being able to change keyboard/mouse/joystick settings, video card settings, sound settings, etc... This currently all has to be done by editing a text file.
Fix - Need to improve on the menu by including the said features above ether by script or by game settings when compiling game.

Save/Load Feature - We really need a save/load feature for the program.
Fix - As said above.

Multiplayer - Multiple levels per exe instead of a single exe per level. Player has to input name each time he starts a game. Need more game modes than Death match

Fix - Need to be able to include multiple levels per exe. Also need to have a menu item for multiplayer settings so the player doesn't have to keep typing his name in when he starts up a game.
While Deathmatch is fun, we really need something like CTF or team deathmatch. The system really needs to be more flexible.

Lighting system - Needs to be fixed. I believe Lee is working on a better one but not sure when he will be done with it.

Those are some of the issues I found with the program. I believe FPSCreator will be a good system, but just not at the moment for me.

As for my plans, I am planning on moving to Torque. I've owned an indie developers license for quite some time now and figure that I will start working with that again. I guess I'm more of programmer than just a point and click. Part of the reason I went with FPSCreator was to save time by not having to program. I now realize that is a mistake and if I am going to get anywhere, I will need to program. However, I won't be doing any of the artwork/models/textures. Maybe directing a little bit of it, approving material, but not actually creating them. That was my original plan for FPSCreator. It's now just not going to work.
I guess FPSCreator was like the version of GCS that was never produced. Lon knows what I am talking about. GCS was a good system but fell short when the developer up and quit. Lon did make a game with it that is still mentioned around the boards for it being a fun and clever game. Pencil Whipped. Well I hope to do the same with my own games. However, not with FPSCreator just yet.

SoulMan

You'll probably find that some if not all of those problems you've listed may be incorporated into the first patch, and unfortunately when those bugs/new features are sorted other bugs will pop up. A lot of the time fixing a bug can create several other bugs, and it's impossible to have a bug free program.

Generally the first release of a commercial piece of software will cerainly still have a few Class A bugs (crashes or freezes), will have even more Class B bugs (such as major graphical errors like the shader problem) and a hell of a lot of Class C bugs (minor bugs that are a little bit of a pain in the bum and most of those probably won't be fixed!).

All bugs are given a priority with the dev team, with sub-divisions for each Class.

I'm quite happy to buy it (when my last Eidos pay packet is in the bank on the 28th - have just been made redundant! ) and use it as it is, but you're probably going to be better off waiting for the first patch when most Class A's have been fixed.

Seeing as I'm out of work at the moment and am looking for another QA Technician job (software/games tester) I might give Rick a shout and send him my CV

Snowdog,
I understand that it's impossible to have a bug free program. However, those issues that I mentioned come standard in almost every FPS game that is out on the market.
If we are to make FPS games with this program, it goes without saying that those features should have made it at least in one form or another. That is why I am saying those are some of the problems I have found with the program. That is why I am saying that FPSCreator should not have been released until those issues were resolved. One thing that might help out is to do a survey to find out what people would like to see in the program. I think many developers have realized that while they have a good idea they still need input from the community to make the program better. Lee, I'm sure, knows this.
By the way, Shaders were working right before the RC. Not sure what changed to break them.
SoulMan

The problem SoulMan is that companies need to get games/software out to the consumer as soon as possible whether they're ready or not to maximise profits. Whilst the game/software is not on the shelf and is being worked on by the dev team and testers it's costing the company concerned money instead of making them money. It's the way the industry has gone over the last 10 years or so.

A less than perfect product is released, and various patches are released to fill in some of the gaps.

I've only used the demo so far, and won't be able to purchase V1 until 28th and am expecting problems with it. It's just the way things are in the games/software world.

Be assured that the guys at TGC are encouraging and taking note of the comments made on these boards and I dare say that the changes you have mentioned will be implemented in time depending on the amount of work involved in resolving these issues. They may be resolved using a patch or three or if there's major work involved will probably be implemented in the next version.

I'd say that for just £30 you've got a good deal even without patches!

SoulMan,

I respect your opinion, decision and option to make it....

There are an enormous number of difficulties and restrictions in FPSC making it difficult for someone to make a quality commercial game - though personally I have found problems with every other indie engine too.

By and large pesonally I would find it difficult to make my idea of a game without fairly decent AI and pathfinding and at least I find FPSC offers (with some attention to scripting) the possibility of some good AI - thats my main reason for using it - for me no AI means no game. Most affordable engines I have seen have poor or non existant AI and pathfinding and its far too complex a subject for small users to get invloved with programming it - many better than I have tried and failed. Not many successes in that area.

Against that I weigh mainly slow development time, almost impossibly small world size restrictions and poor fps. (forgetting the miriad of minor difficulties, probs and bugs).

For me the AI wins the day - just.

I guess release of V1 was a commercial necessity for TGC - I would like to have FPSC as it might be three (or five) years from now, but not even I want to wait until then to get on with some work or I will have to join you.

At the end of the day there are a lot of progs with a lot of bugs around - some serious and some good ones with few. Its the ones with few that you will find the most and better games made with - needless to say. Really professional programmes of any kind have few bugs but usually cost some serious bucks.......

see ya