398 replies to this topic

[zmax - sim]

Or they could do like HB and put out a buggy TGC 1.5 but call it TGC 2 with just a few new features for $40. But it's a "complete" game.

[Buck]

Or they could do like HB and put out a buggy TGC 1.5 but call it TGC 2 with just a few new features for $40. But it's a "complete" game.

That seems like more of an indictment on the developers there…
It certainly wasn't from a lack of time as that update took a full year (perhaps more for all we know on the outside)

The main point being that whether it's HB or PP, just spending a ton of time on something doesn't mean it's going to be great when it finally comes.

Actually, the total opposite can happen from a lack of direction, changing frameworks along the way, being unclear on what will/won't be included and should be worked on, etc.

[zmax - sim]

I know what you mean. It just seems like some people here always tend to speculate on the worst outcome. Aside from being slow, have PP not delivered on a good game so far? I think they have.

[Arsam]

I have always tried to remain positive and patient regarding this slow development of JNPG, but based on the vagueness of Andrews comments regarding the backward compatibility of PG2 and other concerns raised here I am starting to become concerned that we are going the way of LINKS when Microsoft abandoned the game. The sad part is that the JNPG development team is the ones that took the initiative and kept that game viable, but seem to be going the way of Microsoft.
I hope I'm wrong and I will continue to play and support JNPG, bu it is very discouraging.

[M Rose]

I just hope course conversion is not too laborious a process regardless of where things go.

[johnmeyer]

How can the fact that they are working on a fully modern platform that should bring huge improvements to the new game be discouraging.

 

Most of us paid around $20 for this game,  no one who's still playing it now can honesty say they haven't had their moneys worth. 

 

PG2 as I see it will be pretty much be a brand new game, taking all the best best and advances made in PG1 ie physics, gameplay etc, but put in a new "2017" wrapper, hopefully fixing all the bits that are results of the early design choices and limitations of the earlier Unity platform, and making things look all nice and shiny.

 

Yes that probably means another financial outlay, but if you want the newest games, you generally have to pay for them. As to what happens with PG1, that is a question that will prob only be important for those who dont think its worth the fee to play the new one.

 

Courses I agree are a big thing, there are many greats and big name courses that need taking up to PG2, so hopefully as MRose says, its not a horrendous task

[Buck]

How can the fact that they are working on a fully modern platform that should bring huge improvements to the new game be discouraging.

Most of us paid around $20 for this game, no one who's still playing it now can honesty say they haven't had their moneys worth.

PG2 as I see it will be pretty much be a brand new game, taking all the best best and advances made in PG1 ie physics, gameplay etc, but put in a new "2017" wrapper, hopefully fixing all the bits that are results of the early design choices and limitations of the earlier Unity platform, and making things look all nice and shiny.

Yes that probably means another financial outlay, but if you want the newest games, you generally have to pay for them. As to what happens with PG1, that is a question that will prob only be important for those who dont think its worth the fee to play the new one.

Courses I agree are a big thing, there are many greats and big name courses that need taking up to PG2, so hopefully as MRose says, its not a horrendous task

I'm thrilled to pay again actually…
If the new version was out now I have $100 on my visa allocated just for them.

Any discouragement that I've seen is mainly around how long it's taking and how little we know about what is actually coming and/or when

[M Rose]

I'm all in either way. For all the warts this is still way better than anything that's come before it.

And I'll do all my real courses again if I have to. It will be worth it.

[granite00]

I'm not so worried about paying for another game, but it entirely discourages me because of the endless pursuit of updated platforms.  We've gone through more than one Unity version already and version 2017 is going to cause a loss of countless courses already designed.  What happens when the 2019 version is released (and there will be more after that)?  Quite likely we'll be losing more courses completed with Unity 2017.  This is nonsense!

[Dazmaniac]

It looks like the announcement for the release of Unity 2017.1 was early/mid July this year.

 

From what I remember the new JNPG and CF were being developed in Unity 5.6 and 2017.1 seems to be the next step on from 5.6 so hopefully a port of what has already been developed won't be too time constraining, otherwise we will be in for a long,long wait for anything new.

 

As for courses from Unity 5.2.3 in to Unity 2017, one of the 3D grass examples used Kissing Tree, so I'm presuming Mike should have a good grasp of what would be required for designers to port 5.2.3 designs to Unity 2017.

 

Just hoping the move to the latest version of Unity and all the updates it offers will be worth the wait.

[M Rose]

Previous Unity upgrades to date were generally pretty quick and painless. Maybe 5-10 minutes a course.

But I have no idea what kind of upgrade Unity 2017 is; it sounds more significant.

[Arsam]

My comments did not concern costs, only backward compatibility etc. All in all I've invested less than $50 on early access and course purchases which I consider money well spent for the quality and enjoyment I've experienced with JNPG even though it is still in development. I can remember paying $50 for an update or a single course in LINKS2003 and didn't bat an eye at the time because it was the finest golf sim available at the time. JNPG is the finest golf sim available now imo and as I said before I will continue to support it and I will definitely purchase PG2 when it is available, but we deserve a bit more information from the development team regarding the points raised in this thread.

[zmax - sim]

What points exactly?

[Buck]

What points exactly?

I would imagine at least some 100% clarity on what will be required to take PG1 courses into PG2. The quote below indicates a pretty wild change on some things.
 

The lighting is different in fact everything is different.  It would take almost as much time to upgrade PG to 2017 than to create PG2 on 2017.  So dont expect any of the CF 2017 stuff to be working with PG1

That and maybe a new idea on timeline.  Did we just reset the timing expectations again last month and are now looking solidly at mid 2018?

I could see some course devs deciding to just say "f it" if there's no guarantee you're course could even make it into PG2 without an enormous effort, perhaps even having to basically make a course from scratch again.  Alternatively, if it's known that PG2 is nowhere near coming along, say it's likely to be Fall 2018, then obviously many would be more motivated to keep making PG1 courses.

[Parboy]

I hope course designers don't stop designing for PG1 because of this news. I'm personally not very optimistic about ever seeing PG2.

[zmax - sim]

I give up.   War World III is about to start anyway.... Enjoy PG1 while you can.

[Crow357]

At this point, it's not known what features will be in CF2, so I don't think they can say what will be required.  TE will require changes to the layers library, so at the very least, you'd have to update your splines and recompile.  But, beyond that, I don't know that they know yet what's going to be in it or what the upgrade path would be.

[GoldenBear]

The doom and gloom crowd are at it yet again.  Good grief!

[Mike Jones]

I just hope course conversion is not too laborious a process regardless of where things go.

 

The conversion process is pretty easy in fact I'm hoping that most of it can be automated. When doing tests and updating older courses, the lighting has changed so textures need to be recoloured and if you want to use 3d grass on your meshes (who wouldn't!) you have to assign one of the turf effects grass objects to the relevant layer in the layer's library. That's about it.

[zmax - sim]

The conversion process is pretty easy in fact I'm hoping that most of it can be automated. When doing tests and updating older courses, the lighting has changed so textures need to be recoloured and if you want to use 3d grass on your meshes (who wouldn't!) you have to assign one of the turf effects grass objects to the relevant layer in the layer's library. That's about it.

 

Bingo!    People can now slowly walk away from the cliff.