I agree with the others, and I think more effort should be put into the low/mid-level stuff. Better material system (reflective metal, edge glows, animation of attributes?) w/ Maya-level awesomeness (tons of settings, special flowgraph editor), shaders with variables (intensity, color, time), more "real" effects (physics/fluids, dynamic destructible objects/enemies w/ hit feedback (in other words, you don't swing your sword THROUGH an enemy unless you cut them in half)). Overall add new features and better GUI layout (having basic objects on the right and more stuff hidden in the "objects" panel is awkward, and so are some of the boxes with no info on what they do, no way to edit materials straight from the object that uses it).
Doing lower-level preset things is best for the community, IMO, because many aren't as easy and are generic things many games have: shiny metal, mirrors, anything dynamic (flames and lasers that know how to react to surfaces, hits that actually collide with enemies and return accordingly), ambient lighting calculated from added lights (at least in darker areas?). Yes, GUI stuff should definitely be added in because it's useful to everybody.
TL;DR: Give us tools to make cooler stuff easier rather than giving us content that we should be making (more originally!). Making a game shouldn't be easy, because then the bar is lowered, allowing people to make **** games. You'll still be making money because you're charging $100 for the program, adding to it adds appeal and thus the amount of customers.
EDIT: a better way of restating what I'm trying to say: yes, make it easier, but make the non-content stuff easier to do rather than handing people content. A small amount (giving examples for people to reverse-engineer) is good, but If people start making short FPS games that basically use your prefabs, some enemies, and a few maps, that's not impressive or fun.
Game Scripting is Hard
in Development Blog
A blog by Josh in General
Posted
I agree with the others, and I think more effort should be put into the low/mid-level stuff. Better material system (reflective metal, edge glows, animation of attributes?) w/ Maya-level awesomeness (tons of settings, special flowgraph editor), shaders with variables (intensity, color, time), more "real" effects (physics/fluids, dynamic destructible objects/enemies w/ hit feedback (in other words, you don't swing your sword THROUGH an enemy unless you cut them in half)). Overall add new features and better GUI layout (having basic objects on the right and more stuff hidden in the "objects" panel is awkward, and so are some of the boxes with no info on what they do, no way to edit materials straight from the object that uses it).
Doing lower-level preset things is best for the community, IMO, because many aren't as easy and are generic things many games have: shiny metal, mirrors, anything dynamic (flames and lasers that know how to react to surfaces, hits that actually collide with enemies and return accordingly), ambient lighting calculated from added lights (at least in darker areas?). Yes, GUI stuff should definitely be added in because it's useful to everybody.
TL;DR: Give us tools to make cooler stuff easier rather than giving us content that we should be making (more originally!). Making a game shouldn't be easy, because then the bar is lowered, allowing people to make **** games. You'll still be making money because you're charging $100 for the program, adding to it adds appeal and thus the amount of customers.
EDIT: a better way of restating what I'm trying to say: yes, make it easier, but make the non-content stuff easier to do rather than handing people content. A small amount (giving examples for people to reverse-engineer) is good, but If people start making short FPS games that basically use your prefabs, some enemies, and a few maps, that's not impressive or fun.