Jump to content
Ultra Engine Community

thehankinator

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    436

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Comments posted by thehankinator

    Josh

    Game Launcher and game distribution

    in Ultra Software Company Blog

    A group blog by The Ultra Software Team in General

    Posted

    In my opinion, the game launcher would have successful if the UI was completed. It seems like every time I tried to share a game with it, the other person couldn't find my game. The biggest issue being the name of the game wasn't even visible, just some number below a screenshot. Nothing that couldn't be overcome but it prevented me from saying "Hey go try my game on the launcher, it's called The Hankinator's stupid game". Even worse if someone just opened it up and wanted to browse the games. I know the image had the title in it but that wasn't always all that readable when it was scaled down to a 2 inch square. Even I wouldn't bother looking around there because it was awkward and time consuming just to see the name of the games. Often times even using the Leadwerks website to "launch" the launcher would end in steam reporting an error. There were other things that I think should have been added to the interface like a list of games that the user had already subscribed to, that would have made it easier for the user to come back and play the game again rather than looking through page after page trying to remember what the game image was (cause the title sure wasn't there!) to play it again. Heck I remember opening the launcher a few times and the UI was totally hosed(I think this was around the time that the UI was revamped). I know early access means there are issues but if I tried an early access title and saw that I'd uninstall. Speaking of which did the launcher ever leave early access? I think some people avoid early access stuff, I usually do. Maybe all this was fixed recently, but I feel like there were very significant UI problems for months if not a year+. I think these and other issues killed any "steam" behind the launcher from day 1.

    Sorry for the rant but the game launcher was one of my favorite features of Leadwerks and I really wanted to see it succeed.

    Josh

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, Josh said:

    Is that a Visual Studio only feature?

    Ranged based for loops were added to the C++ standard in c++11, not a MSVC only thing. I've not seen the exact syntax that Roland used but this is how I do it in MSVC 2015  and GCC. 

    for (auto&& entity : list)
{
	entity->SetPosition(1,2,3);
}

    ( auto&& ensures you get a reference and no copies are made)

    http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/range-for

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26991393/what-does-auto-e-do-in-range-based-for-loops

    • Upvote 2
    Josh

    Posted

    Have you thought about doing something with callbacks? You could have both lua and c++ UI code. I wrote a simple program to prove the concept, the end result is you could write c++ UI like this:

     

    Widget* Button = CreateWidget();
Button->Draw = std::bind(&MyDrawFunc);

void MyDrawFunc()
{
   std::cout << "MyDrawFunc" << std::endl;
}

     

    Or with classes:

    class MyButton
{
public:
   MyButton()
   {
       Widget* Button = CreateWidget();
       Button->Draw = std::bind(&MyButton::Draw, this);
   }

   void Draw()
   {
       std::cout << "MyButtonDraw" << std::endl;
   }
};

MyButton mybutton;

     

    The for Lua you could do:

    function LuaDrawFunc()
   print("LuaDrawFunc")
end

button = Widget.Create()
button:DrawCallback(LuaDrawFunc)

     

    or with a table:

    thing = {}

function thing:ThingDraw()
   print("ThingDraw!")
end

thing.button = Widget:Create()
thing.button:DrawCallback(thing.ThingDraw, thing)

    Josh

    Posted

    Is there a tab or something in the Workshop browser that was a list of the items I've purchased? I've not found it yet. If I've bought more than a couple things it'd be nice to see what all I have in one spot (and be able to install individual items from that same list). I could see myself buying something, and a few months down the line forgetting not only that I bought it but that it exists at all.

    • Upvote 1
    Josh

    Posted

    It'd be nice of Josh could focus on all the features/bug fixes that are important to me (because I'm the most special of course!) instead of models but those changes aren't free. The models in the Workshop Store could provide funding for engine and editor improvements.

     

    Back on subject, I was thinking about this some more this morning. Building on what Rick was saying about a notification within the editor itself, have you thought about some kind of free "model/texture/sound/whatever of the week"? It could be a trashcan, new blood splatter, skin for crawler or something else that is cheap/simple. Hell, you could even hold a "competition" here in the forums, people could design a simple asset that would get featured in the store for the week (and a sticker of course). The purpose would be to get people used to getting content through the editor rather than Steam.

    • Upvote 1
    Josh

    Posted

    I clicked on the Workshop items on the store page and that was a store page I'd never seen. It'd be nice of that button was also on the screen within steam where you launch Leadwerks. Right now, there is Launch, View achievements, Find DLC, and Workshop buttons but no button for the Workshop Store. If I didn't know better, I'd assume that the Workshop and Workshop Store were the same thing.

    • Upvote 1
    Josh

    Posted

    First thing I did after reading this was open up Steam and click the "Browse the Workshop" button for Leadwerks Game Engine then clicked the "Paid" section (which indicated 19 items) to see what was there, this is what I saw.

     

    jT3N6Eh.png

     

    I had to go to leadwerks.com and click the Workshop button at the top to see paid items. I doubt this is the whole problem but for people who do not frequent the Leadwerks site/forum, paid items don't exist.

     

    I think that the Workshop store is going to grow into something really awesome but it will probably be a slow build up because it is so far removed from the store page on Steam for Leadwerks Engine.

    Josh

    Posted

    Networking would be awesome! Any plans for performance analysis tools? I've really struggled with this the last few months with little progress. Formal documentation for best practices for performance would be nice too(Unless it already exists?). The Vectronic performance discussion was great but you have to dig around and I don't feel it's complete.

    • Upvote 5
    Josh

    Posted

    I know this is planned for paid DLC but, this concept would work really great for the seasonal coopetitions. Just like lego sets, maybe you could have a small set that is free for the coopetition then a larger one that's for sale.

     

    Like if the theme is pirates, there could be a set with a few items(that have the basics for a story/theme) for free but also a large set with additional items that are in line with the free set but for a price. I think that could make the coopetitions much more interesting.

Copyright © 2024 Ultra Software.
All rights reserved.
×
×
  • Create New...