The problem with releasing the code to users is that though an admirable decision in itself and one to be commended - in reality it will do little to aid the vast majority of them. Unless of course someone is able to do anything useful with it and make the result available to the rest of the users. Otherwise anyone who is I dont know - shall we say - clever enough to make the slightest sense of it will be a very isolated type of person and the benefit to the product and user base negligable.
Time will tell if anything extremely useful comes from the release of the source without assistance from TGC. Thus far I dont see anyone finding a solution to any common requests, features or issues and that includes Save/Load amongst many other things that users might legimitmately expect to see as part of a default product.
It really is not that easy - though that situation no doubt may change in time if some ardent users decide its worthwhile to bear the expense in any form.
There wont be many such persons for sure who would be prepared to take the source on fully and get much of a return on the investment of their labours and I dont particularly mean a financial one. For the rest the idea is really just a daydream if they think they can mess with the source and end up with anything like stability and an improved engine overall. Well I will believe it when I see it.
Until then the release of the source is of not of any real use or benefit to anyone.
In truth FPSC is different in many ways to other indie engines and the user base is one of them - by and large they are people who have no inclination or intention of playing with scripts - leave alone the source code, though still expect a feature like save/load in a product intended to make computer games - cos thats what one normally sees in computer games - you play - you save and you load. True some games dont have it and most players of those games also wish it did.
FPSC is designed from the base up to be best suited for use in making games by those who want a high degree of click and play functionality and theres nothing wrong with that - so should all game engines be in the 21st century - dont expect them to write code. Indeed almost all indie engine developers today even ones that like FPSC make the code available - also are moving their engines slowly to a greater accommodation of the non scripter user needs which continues to offer developers a growing community user base. Good for Sales, Good for the product and good for gamemaking.
Despite the thinking on various forums in some circles as to the effect of this on gamemaking communities - the trend will continue - the days of the programmer only indie game engine is gone for good.
Great games can be made by expert programming - true it is to say and that will continue - but the influence and quality of - as it has been described and pointed out to me recently here at the forum of "Click and Play Systems" as opposed to perhaps engines will contimue to progress hand in hand along with the enhanced programming capabilities of Game engines of the future.
Dont think it wont happen - it just might - if you live long enough to complete your game with FPSC you might see the day.
It may well be that someone can take the FPSC source code and push that all along - and then you may get a save/load function - and its partly in such ways that everything advances and FPSC in its way is an advance along that route - dont knock it - but try and help it along if you can.
Everything about this forum as well as others helps this progression - as not only the users - but also the developers TGC discover much about both what users want and what the engines capabilities and shortfalls are (not known in depth unless you have a user base) and learn from that in making a better product.
If TGC dont watch the product and this Forum closely and at least try and learn something from it I would be very much surprised. If they dont then they should do.
