Josh Posted May 18, 2022 Share Posted May 18, 2022 Related to this topic, I thought a more detailed explanation was appropriate. Ultra Engine approacheth, which means a lot of old faces that have been gone will be back, and a lot of new faces will be here. We can expect an increase in site activity, so where do we want that activity to take place? From experience, we know the things that work really well: Blogs Gallery Videos However, there are a lot of dumb ideas I have pursued just because I could. The game launcher was not a good idea. Steam Workshop was not a good idea. My job is to create developer tools, not create some kind of social gaming site. Just because I can do something doesn't mean it is a good idea to do it. There are websites entirely dedicated to the business of giving you as much free disk space as you want to host your games. I don't feel like my presentation of your games is very good, and it's not like they're getting massive amounts of traffic. If you look at our gallery, video, and blogs, they are exciting to browse and packed with content. My bad web design did not make the games section look very interesting, and there were problems in that a published game was competing for space with a non-existent idea someone just creates a page for. There's also a problem with single-file attachments in IPB databases, it renames the file to a really long random string, so when you download it, it has a weird name. No easy fix. Also, your profile page does not list your games like it does screenshots and videos. Do I want to keep pushing people into this system when I know these problems will never be fixed? People are pressing the download button and getting files with names like "FPSame_zip9494395743572495247". I have to do something about this. Just because I can make a bad copy of itch.io, gamejolt.com, or indiedb.com does not mean it's something I should spend time on. I don't like having things hanging around that aren't up to the quality of the rest of the site, and my effort was not really doing anyone any good. It doesn't make sense, it's like Adobe trying to start a search engine or something. I want to focus entirely on my job, which is finishing Ultra Engine and then adding the features you want into it. That's it. That's my job. I do not help anyone when I come up with hare-brained ideas and waste time on them. I should not have wasted time on Steam Workshop or Game Launcher. Instead I should have been adding PBR materials into Leadwerks (even though it would not have been perfect), like people were asking me to. You'll notice over the last year I have been pulling all the site activity back here rather than on Steam. The dark forum theme makes everything look slick and professional without requiring a lot of maintenance. I want to reign in aspects of the site that don't really work, and I don't think I need to poke my nose into the publishing / distribution side of games. It's just dumb. There are well-established outlets for distributing your game. They are itch.io, gamejolt.com, indiedb.com, and Steam. I am in the process of uploading all your games to Google Drive here: Part 1 Part 2 If there's a title image I am uploading that as well. Most of the game screenshots and videos have already been moved into the gallery and videos sections, with the correct author attributed. Those areas are now packed with a lot of really interesting content that was hidden away before. I am sorry I took my eye off the ball and went on so many weird tangents. It turns out the winning move was to make an engine like Leadwerks but better, and to also make it 10x faster. It took a while to figure that out. Now that I have, I kind of want to go back to how things were pre-Steam, where I just wrote software and didn't try to "help" people beyond just delivering good tools and the features you ask for. Give me a couple weeks to get everything uploaded and please tell me if there's something you are missing, I have multiple backups of this stuff. Your feedback in general is always welcome. 3 1 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thirsty Panther Posted May 18, 2022 Share Posted May 18, 2022 At the time I thought the Game Launcher and Workshop were good ideas. Telling your mates you have a game on Steam gives your a level of smugness that you just can't get any other way. I used the workshop to download models and textures as well as scripts which helped me greatly. Times have changed and there are other options to distribute your games and it is best to concentrate on the game engine as there is so much competition in this space now. Looking forward to the release of Ultra Engine. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 19, 2022 Author Share Posted May 19, 2022 I am also going to enable signatures. If you have an itch.io page or something you want to promote you can link to it in your signature, and it will appear after every forum post you make. 3 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_SquarePeg Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 Hey @Josh If you do not mind me asking. How far away are we from the launch of ultra engine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 20, 2022 Author Share Posted May 20, 2022 6 hours ago, Mr_SquarePeg said: Hey @Josh If you do not mind me asking. How far away are we from the launch of ultra engine? It could be as little as eight weeks. Hard to say. The release will follow the path Leadwerks originally did. First it will just be a programming SDK, followed by the visual editor. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 21, 2022 Author Share Posted May 21, 2022 You can now enter a description in the "About Me" section of your profile: https://www.ultraengine.com/community/profile/1-josh/ If there is any information filled in, this will be the default tab shown when someone views your profile. Some of you have very high numbers of profile views, so if you wish to put links to your itch.io, gamejolt.com, or whatever you want, and maybe you will get some amount of traffic from that. This makes the whole site simpler and probably serves your needs a lot better. 1 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBurger Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 FYI, signatures do not display on mobile. Quote i now hate love C++ Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep~~This is a test of the emergency signature system~~Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep RX 6800XT | i5-13600KF | 32GB DDR5 | 1440p is perfect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 21, 2022 Author Share Posted May 21, 2022 15 minutes ago, IceBurger said: FYI, signatures do not display on mobile. Thank you, I changed the setting for this. They were also not being shown to guests. 1 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reepblue Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 Speaking of mobile, Chat isn't enabled on it ether. I like checking the chat on the go sometimes. Quote Cyclone - Ultra Game System - Component Preprocessor - Tex2TGA - Darkness Awaits Template (Leadwerks) If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 21, 2022 Author Share Posted May 21, 2022 Okay, it should show now, only if you are signed in. The free items from the marketplace are uploaded in the /Assets folder in the part 2 link above. 1 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 22, 2022 Author Share Posted May 22, 2022 The forum / community system is FINISHED! Here is my wish list for some small improvements in the future: About Me disabled for non-customers Single feed for images, videos, blogs, with blog header image Blog entries require header image Copy button shown in code boxes But that's it. No new features or crazy ideas. It is done. 2 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 Leadwerks Marrketplace is now closed for business. Payment was send out for remaining balances for sellers. If you purchased a product and need to re-download it please message me. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Marcell Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 Josh, some time ago i wanted to buy a tool from the store called b-spline or something, so what now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted June 12, 2022 Author Share Posted June 12, 2022 It's on Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1119273174&searchtext=spline 1 Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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