We need GameCenter support NOW!!

danlbryant

So game center comes out next week, and it woudl be fantastic to get achievements, multiplayer and all the other features of gamecenter. Pleeease?

Photics

Well, I'm tired of the waiting game. My countdown is set at 9 days. One of the three things should improve...

1) The cost of "Pro" is too expensive.
2) Communication between Gendai Games and the GameSalad community is poor.
3) Updates are too slow... and lately, unremarkable.

If none of those things improve, I'm not planning to waste another year with iPhone development. Without GameSalad, iPhone development is just not fun. Not counting GameSalad, I'm far more successful with the Android Market. But lately, GameSalad seems stalled.

danlbryant

Yeah I'm right there with you.

Shpint

Count me in.
1. Gendai should really response to forum members and share their opinion with us.
2. They should have updates every month or two.

Everything else is great. I'm not gonna leave GameSalad until I learn Objective-C.

RH

Without a doubt, when GameSalad catches up, and can keep up, it will be a great tool.

I think the thing is, with all the memory leaks and instability as well as all the new features that apple have been pouring on recently there is a lot to do.

The only thing that I am frustrated at, as you say, is the lack on communication with the forum.

ON TOPIC: I agree, GameCenter in GameSalad would be AMAZING!

JamesZeppelin

I've messed with it a little and it is pretty much like OF (which will be integrating game center anyways - add open feint you get game center!!)
Multiplayer would be tough for GS but as far as achievements and leader boards i can see how they would work as a rule in GS perfectly.

Scripting your criteria is a bitch but adding the "unlock open feint (or game center) achievement #2276786 part is easy. Luckily GS has done the hard part already

THE REAL ISSUE IS
getting permission to use the sdk as a third party. I think that is where the trouble is.

giacomopoppi

Yep, GS needs to wake up.... thay have recieved 1000000$ investment!! by now i was expecting GS would have weekly updates and constant communication with us!!

iDeveloper

The lack of communication is unprofessional. Heck, APPLE (a company WAY bigger than GS) listens to it's devs. Some iOS 4 features were REQUESTED.

I can't understand why GS doesn't communicate with it's members, especially in their own Suggestions and New Features forum.

danlbryant

Yeah communication is a big deal.

Tapcodia

Been messing with Corona alot lately. GS is good and easy, but having to restart every 7 minutes (not to mention the other problems) is a bit much. Wish i could get the hang of unity but it doesn't seem to stick with me.

JamesZeppelin

None of GS's setbacks really make me not like the product at all.
I'm just kind of surprised at some of the decisions.. Also a big investment does not speed things up. Often it starts a restructuring which can slow things for a while.

I dont get the corona thing after looking at it.
TO me if you want easy use GS if you want the features and have the time use Unity.

Middle ground that still takes a lot of time just doesn't make sense in my opinion.

I have said it before i love both. The more you use what is considered the best (feature wise) the more you realize GS's shortcomings are not so bad.

Development is not clean.... period
The fact GS is as clean as it is is amazing even with what it lacks

Also i agree the pro support is a joke but the communication thing... come on they arent mommy and daddy

Koda89

I would love GameCenter, but if they make it a freaking Pro feature only, I will officially quit, and probably demand for a refund, because I can let iAds slip by, I don't care about that, but no GameCenter would REALLY screw over the Express members big time. So this is a feature that, for the good of all of us, needs to be available to all of us.

Photics

JamesZeppelin said:
Also i agree the pro support is a joke but the communication thing... come on they arent mommy and daddy

Maybe you haven't noticed the whole "Web 2.0" thing, but communication with customers is good business... especially for online businesses. Gendai Games obviously believes this. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a blog, a forum or yellow posts. Yet, something has caused them to pull back. That's a warning flag to me. Why are they struggling to keep up, especially now that they should have more money? What are they doing? By being open and honest with the community, we can adapt to adversity. But with silence, or minds are left wondering... we fill in the blanks... we can assume the worst.

The point is I can't build a business on uncertainty. "Pro" is referred to as a ripoff or a risk. That's bad! That's when Gendai Games should pop on the forums and support their product. They should justify the high cost... not leaving the community to guess... like *nudge nudge* *wink wink*... they really want the splash screen there.

"Rhymes with iPad" resulted in failure. I designed a game specifically for iAds on speculation... on trying to fill in the blanks... by trying to imagine what Gendai Games was going to do next. I guessed wrong. (If AdMob was supposed to be "Pro", I should have figured it out, but I didn't.)

I can't work that way. So, I'm setting an arbitrary deadline. I don't do this to rally the community. I think it's a great community and it should stick together. I state my opinion as as a warning. I'm not happy with the progress/communication lately and I'm planning to leave the community as a result of it. I don't want to, but I'm tired of the disappointment and frustration.

Threepwood

There's really nothing to justify with Pro. Basically, you spend 2K to get rid of their branding and have a more professional looking product. That's the *real* reason to get pro. The URL and iAds are just something else they can toss in there. It's the same basic thing with Unity. You want the Unity splash screen gone? Upgrade to pro for $1k or whatever it is, on top of the money you spend for Unity basic and Unity iPhone.

That's all there is to it. Pro is really all about the splash screen and most people with a product at a certain level will see the 2K as being worthwhile to spend to get rid of the GS branding.

iDeveloper

Photics, I agree. The Big Picture for August........ Hmmm.. No release yet....... I thought "Big Picture" updates meant that releases were imminent. Posting information about an update but not releasing the update in the same month is bad.

That's why I'm slowing down on posting... GS was once a awesome Engine. The memory bug STILL hasn't been fixed. I feel that G-Games has spend that 1m investment on other things beside GS.. Besides, WHY does a company that makes money off subscriptions need to rise that much money?

Any more "pro" features that are supposed to be express features, I may request a refund and file a FTC complaint. By having simple features (take iAd) and putting them in "pro" means they're affecting competition. As said in an earlier post, WHY do $2000 pro users need iAd? I thought pro users were making good money to afford the pro. I guess G-Games wants to rip off express users; I mean even a SIMPLE splash screen removed for pro?

If this is the trend for the future, then I'm gone and seeing about corona. (I think Corona is going GUI with the "Game Edition" if I'm not mistaken)

danlbryant

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that pushing the Express subscription will ultimately make them more money than the pro, nobody is going to shell out $2000 for iAds and URLs...

TymeMaster

You have GameCenter now, just use XCode. Game Salad is not made to support every feature, but it is easy to use, and that is the price you pay.

If you want less programming and those features, use Unity.

danlbryant

I keep hearing people talk about Unity, but from what I can see it only does 3D and I don't think many people (including myself) have the ability to create 3D art.

Breezeonhold

Everyone needs to stop bashing "pro" cost. I personally would shell out $2000 for iads, change splash screen, and urls if I really wanted to get into making apps (I'm more interested in making flash games).

All I need is one or two companies to build an app for and I can get my $2000 back it's not hard. I know of companies right now that would love to pay me to make an app for them.

However I think it's a fair deal. You don't have to program, and you can be more creative with your games. WHAT IS BETTER THAN THAT. If you want to leave and use torque, unity or whatever then get ready for it to be a little more complicated.

Koda89

TymeMaster said:
You have GameCenter now, just use XCode. Game Salad is not made to support every feature, but it is easy to use, and that is the price you pay.

If you want less programming and those features, use Unity.

Don't have the money for Unity. I'm stuck with GameSalad until one of my apps takes off.

JGary321

iDeveloper said:
Any more "pro" features that are supposed to be express features, I may request a refund and file a FTC complaint. By having simple features (take iAd) and putting them in "pro" means they're affecting competition. As said in an earlier post, WHY do $2000 pro users need iAd? I thought pro users were making good money to afford the pro. I guess G-Games wants to rip off express users; I mean even a SIMPLE splash screen removed for pro?

This comment just reeks of ignorance. Who said that iAds was supposed to be Pro? Was that hidden somewhere in the TOS agreement that you were supposed to read?? I sure didn't see that in there. Why does iAds have to be $2k Pro feature? Because in the USA capitalism runs rampant & Gendai as a company can choose what they charge & for what. There is no law (not yet) that states they have to charge a certain price for certain services. And to say you will file an FTC complaint is just laughable. What are you going to tell them? "They won't give me iAds in my $99 a year express membership?" They didn't promise any of that. From the get go they made it very clear that Express is for Indie developers & for full-time developers Pro is a better option.

Do I agree with the price? Heck no! It's way too expensive, & I only plan on renewing for Indie (for the time being). But to say that it's 'not fair' or that they owe you certain features or that it's a rip-off is just plain ignorance. I think too many people here think that Gendai owes them something. You paid the $99 for their service, they are providing that to you as agreed. They owe nothing more. They could stop development tomorrow & leave publishing up & still be within their rights. So let's all get off our high horses and realize that as a company they have the right to charge what they want, and divide their services up however they want.

/soothe trolls

Photics

I noticed some signs of encouragement after my earlier posts.

1) Yodapollo posted about today's Apple event. While the post didn't include major insight into the future, that's still good! Show signs of life!

2) I Just played the updated version of Tigerfish... very impressive. Apparently, it was optimized and now it runs on my iPod Touch. It has excellent use of parallax scrolling! I'm planning to write a more in-depth review after I play the game some more.

nightsky

Does this mean that all engines for iPhone Development are going to need to be GameSalad compliant? Also, do we have to add achievements to our games?

realmadrid1012

Yes we do need to
mesos maple story
maplestory meso

Taidaken

realmadrid stop spammin crap

quantumsheep

realmadrid1012 said:
Yes we do need to
Links to spam here
More Links to spam here

You've set yourself up to be at least given a warning by any incoming moderators, if not having your account suspended or even stopped.

Please discontinue what you're doing.

Cheers,

QS

TymeMaster

You dont need GameCenter, and GameSalad will probably never have it (pro or not).

You see in order to make use of Game Center, you actually really need a game that sync's up two or more players via WiiFi or Bluetooth. So tell me, how do you think you are going to have networking in a high level app like Game Salad?

Can they get something in there? Yes, probably, but it will be crap.

You are getting to the point where a simple point and click game development package doesn't cut it. You need to write code in order to really take advantage of these advanced features.

jonmulcahy

Gamecenter will also be used for achievements and leaderboafds, which most people are interested. You cant really play a wifi multiplayer game on the train, but you can beat your friends high score

Riffel

Photics said:
2) I Just played the updated version of Tigerfish... very impressive. Apparently, it was optimized and now it runs on my iPod Touch. It has excellent use of parallax scrolling! I'm planning to write a more in-depth review after I play the game some more.

Dont get the post?!? :-) the paralax was very best on 3Gs, and u have lots of bubbles and more cromless effects! hope i can back with next GS updates, how abou the frame rate photics? Thank you for play Tigerfish
Riffel

quantumsheep

mulcahy said:
Gamecenter will also be used for achievements and leaderboafds, which most people are interested. You cant really play a wifi multiplayer game on the train, but you can beat your friends high score

Great point, extremely well made.

QS

TymeMaster

mulcahy said:
Gamecenter will also be used for achievements and leaderboafds, which most people are interested. You cant really play a wifi multiplayer game on the train, but you can beat your friends high score

A leaderboard is not what Game Center is all about. Sure it has leaderboards, but its main focus is to act as a gaming social network. You use it to pair up with friends and interactively play games. If you want a leaderboard, these things already exist. Trust me that a true interactive game will blow away any game that only has a leaderboard, so its really pointless.

Note that I am not busting on Game Salad here, I am just pointing out that you are trying to bring it into areas that it wasn't designed for to being with. You need to face the fact that no simple system like Game Salad will ever compete with what someone can do in Objective C, XCode and the SDK. If you want those kinds of features, perhaps you have outgrown the playground and its time to step it up and become a real developer?