The Forecast page

I don't know about you, but I only just noticed that there's no "Forecast"-link down below on the forum page anymore. Probably means that no updates will ever come again the beta-page now fulfills that task.

But, the page is still online!
It was last updated in 2014, so let's get a bit nostalgic, shall we? Let's have a good ol' laugh at all these old features we hadn't had at the time!

Forecast Page
(Call me paranoid, but I've made a screenshot just in case.)

Look at that! We still didn't have the new WED that probably never will exist actually.
And all that other stuff! enums, unions, trinary operators! Of course, a good programmer could easily make it work without those, so there's no real need for those, so no rush, no rush.

And, I don't know, just look at it yourself.


There's really poor communication of any progress going on (if there even is any), despite the promises of at least that improving. I know that's not a new opinion, I know that people have said it before. Still feel like saying it now. That's what "Rants" is for, right?

I think we all miss those old times where we had frequent updates bringing new feautures to the engine, when the hope for having the new WED and Android port would make gamestudio a popular engine again. Unfortunately since Zorro appeared gamestudio development began to slow down and after years we got none of those new features that were coming.

It's also interesting to see that some of those new features in the forecast page are at 100% but never got released, like static shadows from models, creating dlls, pssm on transparent objects or real-time generated shadows on terrain.

I have also a new MapBuilder update ready since Sept 2015, but I always postpone fixing some bugs, because the state of 3dgs is not really motivating, contrary to the engine I currently use in 2 projects...

apparently gamestudio developers has chosen not to step forward to avoid the decrease of users caused by the increased competition. sadly it was 4-5 years ago. I don't think it can be popular again, when you can get up-to-date professional multiplatform tools for free, beside more support (tutorials, assets). maybe you can start with them slower than with 3dgs, but finally your game development is going to be faster.

The worst thing is that users are just left hanging until it slowly dies,
with no news, explanations or regrets. Still, I am glad i did not fork out for Pro version.