Unity 2.5 Is Out

#1 You know what I find amusing. If we posted a similar thread over at Unity about Torque 3D being released, it would get flamed all to Hell.

The difference between the communities is intriguing...

#2 They're certainly "enthusiastic".

Definitely though, I think with more competition everybody can win. Also, I think we'll finally see a lot of people settle on what they like and don't like about the two engines since there has been so much talk. It would be shocking if nobody at GG tried out Unity or vice-versa and I suspect that the two companies have less antipathy than their supporters. In some ways, it's my honest belief that people will try Unity and be a little disappointed in that making games is hard work and that they can't use the "I have no Mac" excuse any longer.

Scripting in Unity is much, much less forgiving and the feature division is definitely going to upset people. The art pipeline is better (no offense intended).

For those that were planning on it, especially those with the strong "grass is greener" mindset, I'm curious to see how they react to Unity. Of course, you really can't get to know any engine in the time frame given to you in a demo (except with Torque, since you can still mess with the scripts).

To me, it's the single-best competitor to Torque. If it's better or not is a personal choice, if only I could take what I like from each...

#3 I don't really see them as much competition. Lots of nice features in Unity, a different set in Torque. My fave scripting language isn't either of theirs, though ;)

#4 I downloaded it just now. I'm not sure I like the UI very much. I had a hard time selecting objects, it just wouldn't select anything other than the terrain.

I'm going to have a better play with it today.

#5 As a hobbyist game developer I am definitely purchasing Unity; it seems moire suited to my environment as a modeler/rigger/terrainer/coder jack of all trades master on only a couple. PLUS I'm at home with C# and J, which has a great appeal..

#6 @Michael: I wouldn't draw many conclusions 10 minutes after the post is done :) I've seen lots of flaming about Torque on Unity forums, and I've seen lots of flaming about Unity on GG forums. Apparently some people just like to flame.

Myself, I think competition is good. Torque probably gets better because there is competition (Unity included). Unity probably gets better because there is competition (Torque included). The game developer wins in both cases.

Just in case: I work at Unity Technologies.

#7 I happen to like Unity, TGEA, NeoAxis, and many others.
Each have their unique feel, and you can tell the difference when playing a game developed using any of them.
Competition is good, and hopefully us engine tech licensees will benefit from it.

#8 @Aras - I completely agree competition is good. I never said it was not. Competition brings out the best in developers, which benefits the end user.

Flaming does indeed happen in both forums, but the difference is we jump into every thread we can that is flaming here and balance out the mindset. Most "Torque Sucks" threads in your forums run wild (some even take a cheap shot at people, instead of just the tech). Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion and some complaints are valid to some users, but we try not to let an engine battle thread turn into one sided bash-a-thon.

Congrats on the release btw =)

#9 I did two Unity projects already, so here's my 2c:

The art pipeline is awesome, and it compensates the lack of source code very well with the editors, scripting and component system. The web plug-in is also very user-friendly, small and installs quickly and cleanly (I didn't even need to restart Firefox!). Plus it's a living example of Mono actually working in cross-platform ;).

But there are a few issues I find very limiting:
1) The lack of integrated debugging.
2) The incompatibility with 3rd party versioning systems (and Unity's own costing premium per client).
3) The need for a license for each person working with the Unity's editors.

Interestingly, Flash had (and still has) very similar problems which make collaborative development cumbersome and error-prone. All 3 issues, in my opinion, combine to make Unity be hard to scale to anything that requires more than two or three coders or requires many people creating/editing Unity scenes/resources. Even if your company can afford an asset server license for each team member, things like scenes and prefabs are binary and cannot be edited concurrently/merged, adding extra overhead to the production pipeline.

But for projects where only one person is doing the coding and scene/prefab editing, it's very, very good. The component system allows for wildly different game styles to be up and running in a matter of days, so it's also good for prototyping.

#10 I am installing the demo now..
I would hope that the fanboi'ism ceases. No one needs to waste time arguing over mundane details..use the time to better yourself.

...or you could just go on with being an angry grunt.
The choice is yours people.

#11

Quote:
and I've seen lots of flaming about Unity on GG forums. Apparently some people just like to flame.

Whatever. All of the threads (on here) that I've run into only say good things about Unity. Most people seem to like it, and make no big deal about any competition.

#12 As long as this kind of thing stays civil, it's fine with me. Like Mich, I've noticed that a lot of threads about Torque on the Unity forums turn into huge, juvenile bash-fests. Sometimes it's hard not to want to jump in when things get to outright lying. Their forums are *thier* forums, though. It's up to them to moderate and decide what's productive conversation, and what's not.

I would really like it if this community did not drift into that kind of narrow perspective fanboy-ism that sometimes shows up in the Unity forums and other communities. Love the tools you work with, sure. Defend your opinions. Definitely be respectful of the hard work that goes into each though. I know the Unity guys are busting their asses to pull off a lot of cool stuff, just like we are. In the end, it's all good for developers. We make the tools we want to work with, for the games we want to make, and we're proud of Torque's track record both in the hands of our own team, and 3rd parties.

#13 If the world was all Unreal Engine, it would be a terrible place to live. Not because it's a bad engine (it most definitely isn't!), but because innovation might be slacking.

Not just engine features, but developer tools, need to evolve. I hope the indie engines steal good ideas from eachother :)

#14 @Ronny: I find UnrealED *terrible*. Constructor is a much better CSG tool =P

#15 Sure, the editor may be terrible, but look at the games people have produced :)