Why is there such a lack of documentation?

Hey guys, I really think the team is doing a great job and I'm not here to complain. I'm just observing and trying to help by bringing my opinion (and then you do what you want). So:

In my opinion, people complain because you have gone one more step forward to a busniess approach with the new licences. It is a fact, and you can't deny it, that when you propose licences at the high price of (approx) $500 and $1500, you are selling a product of quality. The pro version has the price of an Adobe product like Photoshop or After Effects, or the price of Unity Pro, that is to say the most popular products that have been developped by big teams over several years, with lots of cash and experience, and user feedbacks. Look at the difference of possibilities between Unity and Visionaire.

I really (really!) understand that you want to invest to develop your software furthermore, and that it needs money, and that you need money either, and that the sales of the indie version are not enough - but on the other hand, it's not surprising that people complain for a lack of documentation on a profesional tool (it is! or don't sell the pro version). You are pro or you are not, then you just assume it - as I said it's not a criticism.

We all know that a lot of games developped by Daedalic were created with Visionaire. Isn't there a way to find a partnership with them?
Have you asked them if they could invest a part of their benefits (made with your engine), in order to help it get even better? I'm sure they can understand, and that they could be interested. Unless they have already gone to Unity which is at the same price than your soft? You should definetely think carefully about this.

And what about a crowdfunding? You could probably gather money on Kickstarter if you explain that you want to improve your software. Developers like me would probably back you, and could help spread the word about your campain. Also there are so many Adventure fans in the world, that they would probably want to help, particularly if some of their favourite games were created with Visionaire...

Just ideas. What to you think?

Lee, I'm actually good with the 3D-stuff, and I think that our implementation is working now very good. Most of the bugs were crashes in old drivers, nvidia had a big bug in their drivers. Even if the implementation is basic, it is working at least as good as the 2D-stuff. What I can't do is write documentation how to export because I'm no that good at 3D animating, I know what bones and blend shapes are, normal maps and all that stuff. But I haven't put a character together and exported it. But we collected character samples and most is working there. Problem is the animation data. But I will try some exporting pipelines for the documentation.

@Simon_ASA: I don't know many people that are considering the higher licenses, because at Unity + Photoshop you are buying features, with us you are buying support time to help you creating the game, that's what Daedalic does. And don't think the basic think we need is money, we need motivated people and money can only compensate so much for the time we are putting into this engine. Just curious has anyone you know considered a big license ? And what won't is what you said Daedalic should invest, that won't happen for sure, at least not more than what is happening. And Unity isn't nearly the price as we are, Unity is much much much more pricy, but you aren't shown the costs Unity generates (especially for consoles, there you start at 50000 bucks), also 1500 is per platform per seat per game for Unity. We are talking business side here, so you know, everyone else should be happy with a basic license 50 for visionaire or 75 for the adventure maker in Unity.

Also crowdfunding won't happen, we would be promising features more than we are already doing, for me I can't do fulltime and money from kickstarter won't compensate that. We were often asked for that, but I don't know what features we could promise we would be making then.

Ah ok Simon mate, I vaguely remember everyone not being too up on 3D side of the engine. The 3D stuff is way over my head & I don't think I will end up using that side of the engine, unless I was working with someone else & they wanted to use it.

@ t'other ( ) Simon: Daedalic have been slowly shifting over to Unity for a while now. Although they might still use Visionaire Studio for the odd game, but who can say, besides them? They are pretty much the only company that has ever needed the commercial licenses, although Chris of Stasis is planning on, or has already purchased a pro license for Stasis. The pro licenses are for commercial/retail released games that you intend to sell as a physical product or you have contracted funding for the development of your game via a publisher.

Most people will only ever need the indie licenses, which are valid for ever for whichever version of the engine you hold the license for. I think the indie licenses are really cheap considering you can make & sell as many games as you like for windows, mac & osx & you can even export for ios & android with those licenses as freeware or for testing purposes.

Obviously the switch to Unity hasn't been good for them, as I can't remember that good games were coming out last year But one game is left, Annas Quest (http://www.daedalic.de/de/game/Annas_Quest), looking forward to that.

I thought the Anna's Quest game was for kids? Are they developing that steam-punky split female protagonist game in unity or vs? I forget what the game is called, but it looked pretty interesting.

Anna's Quest is Visionaire. That title is planned for mobile devices in the first place. Don't know how that game will be, but I think if it would be for kids, there is no problem with that for me

haha

I'm not sure about playing kids games. I don't mind watching animated movies intended for kids though. Last night I watched "Big Hero 6", was nothing special mind, I did enjoy the "Boxtrolls" movie though.

EGGS!

Is it possible to hire outside help? There must be developers out there that can assist you?

For example you say the 3d side is buggy. could you hire someone to iron out those bugs? Is there a reason why only three people are developing this engine?

If you had a substantial amount of money, could you use it to iron out the 3d issues by hiring outside help?

I really think it would add a lot of fuel to your sales if you had this working. And provide clear tutorials on how to use it! I really believe software can live or die based on tutorials, especially when theres competition.

You guys have the foundation for a strong product, but the development, forgive me for saying; seems badly managed. The reality is i don't know this to be true, it just seems the case from reading through this thread.

Stick a paypal donation button on the top and ask people to put their money where their mouth is and use that to hire help! I'd donate something for sure Many developers are using such systems. Wikipedia for one!

It really is a double edge sword, you say you need interest and motivation, but you need to fuel that motivation by generating interest. Create a clear road map with goals, establish ways to reach those goals through management, funding etc

Its worth noting, Unity, IDK etc, all started with one or two guys that had an idea.

David

David (above message) is quite right.

Please note that AFRLme already said there was a donation button somewhere on the site (or that there will be).

In fact there is another problem with Visionaire: the site!

- please repair the homepage visionaire-studio.net (I can't visit it, it's frustrating for me and other people to always seek for the good links)
The homepage should, at least, automatically redirect to http://www.visionaire-studio.net/cms/adventure-game-engine.html
instead of showing an error message...

- be more communicative. There were a lot of great things done lately by your team, but I had no idea about them! Don't tell important news only on the forum! I don't know what's wrong with the system of news, but I always miss interesting things.
For example I had no idea about the Paypal donation button idea.
It seems that you're working quite in a closed community (only on the forums), while all major announcements should appear clearly on the mainpage (or should be easy to access from the mainpage).

You should explain clearly your situation to everyone and say: look, we're not a pro business, we want to improve our engine, but it's difficult and we need more money to create tutorials, etc...
There is no disgrace in telling the truth.

I don't know. Try to visit and analyse the sites of other game engines (Unity, UDK, Game Maker, Wintermute, etc). There are probably good ideas to take in order to improve the navigation and make important informations easier to find.

“

Daedalic have been slowly shifting over to Unity for a while now. Although they might still use Visionaire Studio for the odd game, but who can say, besides them? They are pretty much the only company that has ever needed the commercial licenses, although Chris of Stasis is planning on, or has already purchased a pro license for Stasis.„

Well I definetely plan to purchase a Pro version someday too. As I explained to Thomas once, I want to sell self-published DVD releases of my games through Trepstar, that is to say without having a publisher. You can probably understand that buying the Pro licence needs time and reflexion, particularly since it has to be purchased for every new game (this makes me angry)...
You know I already bought 3dsmax (5000$) and After Effects (2000$) and more (they are my tools at work as a freelancer), and now I'd really like to keep a bit of money for myself. If ASA: Remastered and Catyph sell enough on Steam, then I can go further and think of purchasing the VS Pro version.

It has been a very bad surprise when you introduced the new system of licence after VS3, but I didn't really complain because I understand why you are doing this. However I think you should take into consideration the ideas in this whole thread from the very beginning, without trying to find excuses. We all have troubles and difficulties to develop our projects.

Peace

PS: By the way, a "Pro Indie" licence would be nice (no need to purchase it again for every new game) haha!

You have to purchase a license per each game via other engines like unity too no? or in the case of udk, you have to purchase a license or give x percentage of your sales to them. All engines are quite expensive, in their own way; except open-source/freeware engines, obviously. There's an old motto: if you want to make money, then you have to be willing spend money!. You do know that there was a pro license for 3.x too right? That license was around €1000 & that was also per title. It wasn't a one time payment!

In regards to the donation button. It is not a team thing. It's a personal thing I have setup for any scripts & tutorials I post/share on the wiki, as I work completely non-profit for VS. I don't have a contract, nor do I get paid to sit in front of my computer providing support, tutorials, documentation or writing scripts for people.

If people feel like, then they can donate for existing content to support what I do, or I am also available for freelance scripting/development help (as long as it has nothing to do with the 3D character side of the engine).

This forum! This forum! Ideally Thomas shouldn't really be using VS website as a testing ground for his CMS software, but he is & I doubt that will change at any time in the near future. CMS development is a constant battle of bugs & each new idea/improvement/bug fix seems to generate more bloody bugs. Whenever I think of CMS development, I think of one of those Ouroboros snake things eating their own tail.