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Official: How Can We Serve You Better?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by bibbinator, May 14, 2014.

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  1. TheDMan

    TheDMan

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    Feb 23, 2014
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    When's UT going to make an announcement about what you're going to do about pricing?

    Dont wait until the last minute to do it, let us know what you are planning to do as soon as possible. Definitely decide about pricing before 4.6 comes out.
     
  2. DistractingCat

    DistractingCat

    Joined:
    May 28, 2014
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    I know this won't probably get seen or taken in to account but I thought I'd share my thoughts regardless.

    My partner and I have been evaluating both Unity and Unreal Engine 4 for our latest project. After prototyping in both, we've decided to go with Unreal Engine 4 for the following reasons:

    1) We hit issues with the importing of bones from FBXes in Unity that severely limited our options for doing the dynamic customisation we required. We searched for ways around this (and found a couple of unpalatable ones) but lack of access to the source for the importer made trying to determine how exactly to do so a lot more difficult.

    2) Unity's pricing model is inefficient. You're charging both too much and too little, to the wrong people. There's a few different options here, you should avoid a knee-jerk reaction to Epic's $20/month+5% offering.

    One thing to consider is differentiating your pricing by the size of the licensing organisation more effectively. Charging $9k (pro+2xmobile) for a team of two Indies who are unsure of the return on their game (or want to use that money towards artwork or marketing) doesn't make sense. On the other hand, $9k is probably too cheap for bigger studios who might otherwise be writing six figure sums.

    You need to come up with some pricing models that are more aligned with your customer's success. Epic's model is as fine-grained as you can go with that but you can do something coarser, like making Unity Pro on a yearly subscription say $500/year for companies with <$250k/year in revenue. That would put a dent in Unreal straight away.

    Also consider differentiating on features better. Larger organisations need more collaboration tools, maybe tie those in to a higher tied Unity Pro subscription (as opposed to now where it's an add-on).

    3) Communication. Unity's communication (when compared to Epic) is awful. Their community support and documentation is fantastic. See their public roadmap https://trello.com/b/gHooNW9I/ue4-roadmap for an example of what I mean. This gives us a lot more confidence in Epic's medium and long term plans.

    4) Linux editor support. This is a big one for me. Your single most highly voted feature: http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/platforms-unity-editor-for-linu and there's no communication from you at all. This goes back to the last point. UE4 still doesn't have good working linux editor support but they've communicated that it's coming and we can see it in progress, that's more than enough to tip things in Epic's favour.

    Anyway, I hope those are helpful.
     
  3. ScottJ88

    ScottJ88

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    Aug 28, 2012
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    Keeping everyone up to date with the status of the release is good, however instead of a simple in beta, alpha etc, how about putting a bug count and an eta in man hours / eta with actual date, leaving this down to the QA department to adjust this as bugs get resolved (confirmed as fixed)
     
  4. SeanPollman

    SeanPollman

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  5. TheDMan

    TheDMan

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  6. Carpe-Denius

    Carpe-Denius

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    Has somebody played with it in the last time? When I was evaluating engines, I tried it (about 1,5 years ago). It wasn't even possible to do a stable third person camera without hacks.
     
  7. Devil_Inside

    Devil_Inside

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  8. Steve-Tack

    Steve-Tack

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    Actually, they announced that was going to happen at GDC in March. It's been discussed a LOT on this forum. That engine isn't appealing to me compared to Unity in terms of community support, tutorials, books, samples, and the asset store.
     
  9. SeanPollman

    SeanPollman

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    Jul 10, 2012
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    They gave little info back in march, this has all of the details. It doesn't matter if you wont use it, thats not the point. The point is that there is real competition on the market for Unity3d, and UT cannot afford to sit quietly and do nothing.
     
  10. Ness

    Ness

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2012
    Posts:
    182
    I just wanted to add that I look forward to see some improvement to the Colliders. I`m currently working with them and it feels much like a mess :) One example is having a character collider,other trigger collider and a rigidbody on a character, this causes some strange bugs, like character is Instantiating itself without a reason. Another example is Trigger collider and OnMouse***, when mouse enters trigger collider it activates it even if its on a child/parent and I dont see a way around it.
    What I would like to see is functions like:

    OnTriggerColliderNameOfTheCollider

    So I could add like 3 different colliders/trigger colliders on a character and create a separate behavior for each of these.
    Also OnMouse should have an option to ignore selected colliders.
     
  11. goat

    goat

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    Aug 24, 2009
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    Make sure you shrink the radi of your colliders small enough I'm sure you've done.

    ...but yeah I used some trigger colliders to trigger a line of fashion models walking down a runway and acroos the stage using NavMeshPath Agent or NavPathMesh Agent, or something like that, and it caused my Unity GUI to mess up where I could no longer type in a name to give to a model in a text box because the refresh rate of the event queue was being updated too quickly or something as I was feeding dx, dz to the NavMeshPath Agent (or something).

    I think in my case I just need NavMeshPath Agent tutorials that apply Unity Free although I'll admit the way I'm trying to do it use a GUI at the same time is probably unanticipated and a bit weird.
     
  12. Carpe-Denius

    Carpe-Denius

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    Its possible... if you have several colliders as children to your rigidbody, in your script (attached to the gameobject with the rigidbody) you can use ContactPoint.thisCollider to determine which child got hit.
    I use this for hitzones on a body or to detach car parts on impact:
    http://www.mn-solutions.net/div/crash2.mp4
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2014
  13. Remiel

    Remiel

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2012
    Posts:
    105
    1.
    I am a Computer Science Student, I am also starting a small indie game development studio.

    2.
    I like the idea of a subscription model but currently I don't see a benefit of using it instead of buying a standalone licence. With standalone licence I have it forever while with subscription I have to pay it every month for a year. What gives? Why would I wan't to subscribe for a whole year when with a little more money I could own a licence forever?
    If you'd offer subscription that is cancelable and lower it's price (up to $40 per licence) I'd subscribe right away. Or if you'd offer a standalone licence for free when a certain amount has been paid via subscription (for example 130% of a regular standalone licence).
    You needn't worry about people that would use Unity free and then subscribe just for a month to publish it. Most people wouldn't do that. Pro version offers so much and speeds up the development, and for a reasonable price there is no reason why you would limit yourself to work with free when you can have the profiler and so much more in Pro.
    You say that people who have completed games and are making money with Unity think it is really cheap. That's because it is hard to make a game and publish it. When you do publish it and income starts coming in, of course you suddenly have money to pay for the licence. But for people who are just starting out and don't have enough funding to begin with, paying thousands of dollars for Unity licences is really expensive. Too expensive!
    It would be different if you offered a royalty scheme or to pay 20% upfront and the rest after the game has been released, or even a cheaper subscription model. Many indies and people that are just starting out would prefer even a royalty scheme over paying so much and still be unsure if they are going to succeed or not.
    I've been saving for a few years to buy a student Unity Pro + Android Pro + iOS Pro licence. And student licence is 50% cheaper than a regular licence. Every time I think I've got enough a sudden expense pops up and drains a couple of hundred dollars that I need to buy the licence.

    Here is where a bunch of people would tell me "Just go with the free version, you don't need the pro!". But that's not true. There are so many necessary features in Pro, profiler, async loading, post processing, atlasing, using c++ dlls needed for many hardware and software products, to name a few.
    Dlls are especially important for non game projects, I've personally come in contact with many student projects that wanted to use Unity with some hardware or software but couldn't because they lacked the Pro licence.


    3.
    Regarding console development. It is really interesting to me. We've all grown up looking up to consoles and thinking how we wished one day our game would be on the big screen. Now times are changing and that dream is closer than ever. So possibility for future console development is attractive to me.

    4.
    I am located in Croatia(Europe) and I make 2D games. We make all kinds of 2D games, from mobile arcade games to standalone jRPGs.


    5.
    Don't be afraid of making mistakes. It is arrogant to think you are perfect and do not make mistakes. Expecting someone to be flawless is unrealistic. Talking to us and sometimes making mistakes is much better than not talking at all. There are always going to be angry vocal users, no matter which route you pick. So you shouldn't be hurt by what they say. Most developers are silent and wish not to join the flame discussion.

    I was close to losing faith in Unity for a while - because of lack of communication. It looked like you were ignoring your customers and we had no idea what you were thinking.

    I like technical blogs. And I like how you started releasing new posts every few days. It shows that you are active. It was depressing in the past, checking out the blog every few days and seeing nothing new for a month.
    I'd like to see more advanced stuff. There are already a lot of beginner tutorials on the net. Give us some advanced stuff.

    I don't think devs should spend a lot of time on the forums, I'd rather they use that time to develop Unity and bring us new versions faster.
    But non devs, customer support and the like should be on the forums and answer questions. They would collect the questions that they don't know and that the developer should answer and than ask them to the devs in a batch. It wouldn't take a lot of time for the developers and everyone would be happy.


    6. Already discussed pricing and licences in 2.


    7.
    " Do you like frequent updates with the knowledge your game will work on numerous platforms but no ability to tweak the source?"
    Since when did we have frequent updates and a game that works on numerous platforms? Your updates take ages and there are many bugs with each new release. It would be a dream come true if you had monthly releases or even weekly releases. You could let us know that some version is not thoroughly tested and all that. Having updates that have a few bugs is better than not having updates at all. If we find a bug that is really horrible we can always go back to a previous version.

    However, there is nothing like the security that when you find a bug you can fix it yourself. I've talked to few of the local game development studios and not having a source is the main reason why they decided not to use Unity.
    Lets face it. Your bug fixes take AGES. Even for simple stuff that a developer fixed in a matter of an hour. We still have to wait months for the fix. That is unacceptable! True, you have introduced some measures to speed up things, but I think you should release it as open source.
    That way even if you completely ignored what community is doing with the source and continued on, we would still be able to find someone who fixed a bug on their own. Of course, if you chose to not ignore the community work you would also greatly benefit because there are so many great engineers out there that love Unity and will for free make magnificent additions and fixes. Not only that but releasing the source would allow those that want to go deeper to do so and learn advanced stuff. Advanced tutorials and tips about Unity development would start popping up on the internet and Unity community would bloom.
    Yes, it would take some of your time just trying to verify and integrate all the community additions, but it would be totally worth it!


    8.
    Well, we are facing issues of Unity Pro being too expensive, lack of prefab nesting (<-- can't tell you just how much trouble lack of prefab nesting causes us on every project), waiting for bugfixes for months. We had a big problem recently when the 2D tools came out. We decided to make the latest game with 2D tools and 2D physics only to find out a few weeks in the development that the 2D physics doesn't even offer functions like MovePositions and MoveRotation and couldn't be used the way we wanted it to be. We spent weeks trying to come up with a way to make it work without having to revert back to 3D physics. Not to mention that when we started using collisions to program logic we found out that 2d collisions get called twice, and that sometimes totally wrong exit is called with wrong values. And of course, we had to do some more temporary hacks and solutions involving caching stuff. Etc. every time a new version is released we realized it is incomplete or so full of bugs that I wonder how it ever exited the beta. And then we spend weeks hacking up fixes that we should have been able to fix in days had we had the source code of Unity.

    Speaking of the beta, why not release it to the public? It feels like just a chosen few are invited to the beta, leaving others that were not feeling left out and unappreciated. And since so many bugs are discovered after the beta exit makes me wonder what the beta testers were doing? Are they really using the beta and providing good feedback, or just opening it up clicking a few things and saying "ooo, it looks awesome! All is well!"

    EDIT:
    I agree 100% with DistractingCat. Especially about the pricing being too much and too little to wrong people. You should offer different pricing by the yearly revenue of the studio.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2014
  14. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    OnTriggerEnter etc. already take colliders or collisions as parameters, you can filter on that easily. There's no reason to add more magic calls...
     
  15. Ness

    Ness

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    Oct 1, 2012
    Posts:
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    I dont get it :) How can you have 3 trigger colliders of different size on a character and control each behavior separetly?
     
  16. Ness

    Ness

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    Oct 1, 2012
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    That kinda inspired me to workaround, so thanks, but now it looks like a mess :)
     
  17. goat

    goat

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    Aug 24, 2009
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    Only example code but you actually name the colliders when you add the to the Hierarchy or if you're adding at run time then name them then.

    The this.name == is what I named them in the hierarchy.

    You'll note that this.name is the 'active' collider while c.tag is the current UMA Avatar with collider (humanoid mesh I attached a collider to) so I am checking which collider the UMA Avatar just collided with on the stage/runway. It was a hassle reading the collider support matrices and writing this I remember. Still not convinced it's 100 percent working.

    Code (csharp):
    1.  
    2. using UnityEngine;
    3. using UMA;
    4.  
    5. namespace UMAUI
    6.     {
    7.  
    8.     public class UMAUINavigateStage:MonoBehaviour
    9.         {
    10.  
    11.         void OnTriggerEnter(Collider c)
    12.             {
    13.             // NavMeshAgent avatarAgent;
    14.  
    15.             if (UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR])
    16.                 {
    17.  
    18.                 // avatarAgent = UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR].umaRoot.GetComponent<NavMeshAgent>();
    19.  
    20.                 if (this.name == "EnterRunway"  c.tag == "Player")
    21.                     {
    22.  
    23.                     // avatarAgent.SetDestination(UMAUIAvatarRunway.spotlightRunway[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR]);
    24.                     }
    25.                 else if (this.name == "SpotlightRunway"  c.tag == "Player")
    26.                     {
    27.  
    28.                     if (UMAUIAvatarEditor.controlPauseSelected == true)
    29.                         {
    30.  
    31.                         this.collider.enabled = false;
    32.                         }// if
    33.                     else
    34.                         {
    35.  
    36.                         this.collider.enabled = true;
    37.  
    38.                         // avatarAgent.SetDestination(UMAUIAvatarRunway.exitRunway[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR]);
    39.                         }// else
    40.                     }// else if
    41.                 else if (this.name == "ExitRunway"  c.tag == "Player")
    42.                     {
    43.  
    44.                     Debug.Log("UMAUINavigateStage - Runway:" + this.name + ", Player" + c.tag);
    45.  
    46.                     UMAUIAvatarRunway.addNewAvatar = true;
    47.  
    48.                     Destroy(UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR].gameObject);
    49.                     Destroy(UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR].umaRoot);
    50.                     Destroy(UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR]);
    51.  
    52.                     UMAUIAvatarEditor.trackUMAAvatar[UMAUIConstants.NEWAVATAR] = null;
    53.                     }// else if
    54.                 }// if
    55.  
    56.             return;
    57.             }// OnTriggerEnter
    58.         }// UMAUINavigateStage
    59.     }// UMAUI
    60.  
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2014
  18. im

    im

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    Jan 17, 2013
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    1,408
  19. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Feb 5, 2010
    Posts:
    2,481
    I second the request for better colliders / collisions. The whole collision system is some kind of a mess. Made me more than once mad to get something working. There should not be a need to add two or three colliders with different setup to cover all cases.

    My favourite issue is that Charactercontroller should trigger collisions with another Charactercontroller. It should also trigger collisions in general without dirty hacks like micro movement. You need that one when your CC stands still and you want to trigger a collision with a moving rigid body. Another nagger is the convex/concave issue.
     
  20. JasonBricco

    JasonBricco

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2013
    Posts:
    956
    75 is a lot different from 1500...
     
  21. AnomalusUndrdog

    AnomalusUndrdog

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2009
    Posts:
    1,551
    I'm assuming you already know OnControllerColliderHit()

    Afaik Unity's character controller is the same one in physx. Seeing that they will update physx in Unity 5 only, we'll probably have to wait until then (assuming there's anything that can be done about it short of overhauling the whole character controller code themselves).
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2014
  22. alexzzzz

    alexzzzz

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2010
    Posts:
    1,447
    Hi, I'm a hobbyist programmer and have been using Unity for fun since 3.0, free versions mostly.

    License / price:

    1. I think $1500 for Pro for a user like me, who haven't earned a single cent from it, is expensive, but considering the amount of fun I've got from using Unity previously, it is reasonable and ok. I finally bought Unity 4.x Pro as a New Year gift for myself and consider upgrading to 5.x.

    2. Since the major Unity versions are released approximately every two years, when I was thinking about buying Pro (late December, 2013) I had a dilemma: should I pay the full price and in a year or less pay again to upgrade to 5.0, or I should wait until 5.0 to save the money. I made my decision but suspect that the closer is the 5.0, the less people are willing to pay for 4.x. What if you charge $1500 not for a major version number but rather for a time period during which a user will get free updates? If the period is over, the user stays with the latest version he has at that moment or pays $750 for the next two years.

    3. As for the free-non-commercial-license-with-all-features-unlocked - if you suddenly add such a license, I may reconsider paying you more money)) And if such a license existed, instead of a watermark I would suggest a splash screen that clearly state that the game/app was created under the non-commercial license. This way there would be no annoying watermark but people still wouldn't be able to charge any money for their games/apps.

    Communication

    1. Please, keep us informed on what you are doing and planning to do. No need for dates or promises. Programming is difficult, game programming is more difficult, game engine programming is even more difficult, and multi-platform general purpose game engine programming - I can only imagine what it is. Therefore, when you say "this summer" or "soon", I always interpret it as "when it's done, if nothing goes wrong".

    2. I would like to see more in-depth / advanced technical stuff on the blog. How do things work internally, best practices, common mistakes. Maybe independent authors could also post their articles on the blog, like different people do presentations on Unite. Or you can post links to the articles you've found and think they are good enough to get more audience.

    Documentation

    0. On every page make a small button named "report an issue", so users could easily inform you what is wrong and where is it. It will give you the objective information about what areas cause more troubles.

    1. Shader reference is tough. For example, there is no information on how to write cg programs: syntax, keywords, available functions... There are just links to nVidia, AMD, Microsoft and OpenGL, but what is the best source to stick to for initial learning? I found a list of cg commands on nvidia - some of them work, some don't. I do write my own shaders now, but often feel like I'm walking on a minefield not knowing will the shader even compile.

    2. Shaders/Graphics. How do shadow maps work, how to modify them? I was completely sure it's impossible until Shadow Softner suddenly appeared on the Asset Store.

    3. Editor scripting. I was about to say that editor scripting overview doesn't cover all the available stuff, but right now, after v4.5 has been released, I can't find the editor scripting docs at all.

    4. Plugin docs are kind of foggy. What is a plugin exactly? Is any native dll a plugin, or plugins are only those native dlls that implement the low-level native plugin interface? Do we really need the Pro license to call MessageBox function from Windows' user32.dll?

    5. Stop calling UnityScript "JavaScript", at least in the docs. It confuses people because it's not JavaScript.

    6. Can we have the complete and up-to-date UnityScript language reference, please?

    7. There are classes in the scripting API that are almost completely isolated from anything else, for example: EditorUtility, StaticBatchingUtility, Plane... There's no way to learn about their existence and what they are for, other than to browse through the whole list of available classes and read all the descriptions.

    8. Could you publish the list of stuff safe to use in other threads? Debug.Log, vectors, quaternions, matrices... what else?

    API

    Since I'm a hobbyist programmer and don't have a team of slaves who all are artists, I prefer to generate content procedurally as much as I can. It would be nice if the API would be more friendly for procedural generation and modification at the runtime.

    At the moment the problem areas are:
    - NavMeshes (impossible to create),
    - light probes (impossible to create),
    - terrain (lags on update),
    - big mesh colliders (lag on creation),
    - big textures (lag on creation/update).

    If Unity can't do something instantly (like update a big terrain), it would be nice if there were a way to do it asynchronously without the lag.

    Editor

    Could you make it possible to hide certain assets, not directly related to the current project, in the project panel? Or even better, let us put them in a separate folder outside of the project's folder so that all the projects could share the same assets.

    Use cases: editor extensions, UnityVS files, custom and third-party general-purpose scripts and libraries.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2014
  23. 0tacun

    0tacun

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2013
    Posts:
    245
    Will there be a conclusion form bibbinator? I think the last one was pretty old.
     
  24. tswalk

    tswalk

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2013
    Posts:
    1,109
    I've got to throw one last hat in this ring of what whats...

    I've spent the last week learning how to use ScriptableObjects and making (a rather crappy) Editor Tool... and I've got to say, while learning how to build a framework to deal with ScriptableObjects was a bit of hill to get over... making Editor Tools for use in Unity is a serious P.I.T.A.

    really, there seems to be no tools to help with this... and this really needs to be addressed.

    All the API stuff is fine and dandy (albeit remarkably geared towards JavaScript or missing samples), but a RAD tool to get people going to create a framework interface for their editors is most needed.

    I'm quite surprised I have not been able to find a tool for this already in the asset store; although if I did... it would probably have some odd home-brewed framework of its' own.

    seriously, just add a tool that allows us to rapidly design an editorwindow layout.
     
  25. Remiel

    Remiel

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2012
    Posts:
    105
    75*12 = 900

    And if you take into account that you can get standalone licences with a discount of %50 if it is a student version, and that upgrades are %50 of the original price.
    %50 of 1500 is 750 which is lesser than 900.
    So in the end not only is it cheaper but you also have it forever. You can than upgrade the licence if you'd like, but you don't need to, as long as you don't mind not having some of the most recent features.
     
  26. JasonBricco

    JasonBricco

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2013
    Posts:
    956
    You pay 1500 at once. You pay 75 at once. For some people, you can do that 75 * 12 math. But some of us can't afford to pay 1500 or even 900 upfront due to just starting out and not having any income from selling games yet.

    Having it forever doesn't make it any more appealing to me, as it becomes outdated quite fast anyway in this world.
     
  27. ScottJ88

    ScottJ88

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2012
    Posts:
    47
    Not to be too harsh here but there are a couple of points that I want to bring up with regards to this thread.

    So one of the topics that was in the first post was "We used to communicate a lot. Then we said some stuff, got busy with other stuff"

    Is this already happening again? I couldn't read and keep up with all of this thread but I took a keen interest in the responses from all unity staff members, something that was great, however it seems like now they got the info that's it again... The last post from staff was almost a week ago now.

    This in itself is not that surprising as I don't expect unity staff to keep on top of everything in these forums, however as with 0tacun I would like a round up of what has been taken from this thread (or even an estimate to when we would get this) as I would imagine most people who posted here would.

    Further to this point bibbinator said "Reminder I'll be closing this thread soon with a summary (probably leave it another 12-18 hours)." that was over a week ago, I don't think it is an issue if this topic is left open or not but with no response and the thread not closed it feels like the topic has been forgotten.
     
    landon912 likes this.
  28. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2011
    Posts:
    15,617
    Staff have been pretty active in the other [Official] threads started in the last fortnight or so.
     
  29. khan-amil

    khan-amil

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2012
    Posts:
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    Not to mention all the blogpost that were posted lately.

    Still, I wonder also why the thread is still not closed as announced.
     
  30. bibbinator

    bibbinator

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2009
    Posts:
    507
    Hey all. Soooo, new shiny forums and I don't have admin tools anymore to close this thread :-( Once I get that sorted will close and post summary as promised. Cheers!
     
  31. Teo

    Teo

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2009
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    Bibbinator, I am not sure if you should close this thread. You can get the pulse on what community think from here.

    Also, Bibbinator, before taking any decision, you guys should think on other aspect regarding this thread: for any product there will be always fanboys and haters. No matter what you do the fanboys will always fallow, and the haters will always be unsatisfied. I am none of them. I try to be realist. And like me maybe are many peoples who posted on this thread. You should take a decision (if any will be made) in the most realistic way.
     
  32. ScottJ88

    ScottJ88

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    @angrypenguin where can I find the official threads, for the same reason I couldn't read all of this thread I hardly ever look over these forums unless I need to for my project.
     
  33. Devil_Inside

    Devil_Inside

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    Before this thread closes, I'd like to suggest another pricing option and I'd like to hear what you think:
    1. Unity Pro: $1500 perpetual license
    2. Unity Free: Has all the features of Unity PRO but you can use it only if you generate less than $20 000 per year.
     
  34. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

    Joined:
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    The problem here being that people do lie about their income.
    Also .... 20.000 per year?

    I think it sounds like a really sweet deal for users but a very unreasonable one from a business point of view.
     
  35. Devil_Inside

    Devil_Inside

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    It could be 20k, it could be 10k. My point wasn't the exact number, but rather the pricing model itself.

    P.S. And I myself is all for the idea that UT needs to make money to function. I'm partially ok with the current price, but for those that want a price change, maybe this is a better option?
     
  36. Moonjump

    Moonjump

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    the_motionblur's point was that people lie. The number doesn't matter, people have to actually declare that they have reached the number, which many would neglect to do. Either that or Unity has a system in place to track income from all developers, which isn't a realistic option on many levels.

    I can see the potential benefits, but it doesn't seem workable.

    It does try to overcome the binary message that Unity said. Pro is expensive if you don't have it. It is cheap if you do. I don't believe that binary message as it only covers the ends of the spectrum. There would be benefits on all sides if there were options for those in the middle.
     
  37. Devil_Inside

    Devil_Inside

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    Yeah, but lying in this case is the same thing as using a pirated version, isn't it? Some people will do it and you have no power to prevent it. The rest will "follow the rules".
     
    jnoffke likes this.
  38. GMM

    GMM

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    I personally would like that Unity Technologies became much more transparrent regarding development and release schedules, please take a note from what Epic Games is currently doing with Unreal Engine 4. It's really unfortunate that meaningfull releases are far in between and the content of these releases often dissapoint people waiting for specific features promised like the new GUI system, an updating roadmap would at least give a much better look into what developers can expect and when.

    I would also like to see Unity employ more direct standards across the engine like UE4 currently does, there are simply way too much fragmentation in the workflow for the multi-platform aspect of Unity 4 right now, focus on fewer core platforms with higher quality integration please.

    Take a look at your current pricing scheme please, the 1500$ Pro license is quite fair for what it offers, but the added 1500$ per mobile platform Pro add-ons are just unreasonable for a lot of developers compared to the featureset it offers. Revise the subscription model, it can work, but it's not a very attractive offer at the current prices. Make the Unity Pro trial unlimited, it's mind boggling that new developers or hobbyist developers are forced into buying what is for them expensive licenses just in order to evaluate it properly. The trial already clearly watermarks any build made.
     
  39. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    They're in the Gossip section, with [Official] at the start of their names.

    On that note, it'd be neat if there was a quick way to find [Official] threads. Could this schwanky new forum software help out with that? ;)
     
    Rodolfo-Rubens likes this.
  40. ScottJ88

    ScottJ88

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    @angrypenguin that sounds like a good idea, that would help, having a button or something to only show official threads.
     
  41. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    Oh yeah - I like this idea :)
     
  42. ImpossibleRobert

    ImpossibleRobert

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  43. eskimojoe

    eskimojoe

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    Do you think this is possible -

    - an edition of Unity, where, it is no-generate any build, but allows Pro Effects in editor?
     
  44. ScottJ88

    ScottJ88

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    Also as a last min suggestion / pet hate right now... projectors, not sure if they have been updates from 3.5 but their usability is limited because of several key factors.

    First - they are expensive to use
    Second - they are damn hard to use well, not even the basic tile or offset work (I understand that this is down to the way they work) but surely they can be made a bit more user friendly...
     
  45. firalt

    firalt

    Joined:
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    "How can we serve you better?"

    There needs to be more transparency on what developers should do to remain compliant with future development.

    We need more information on the future updates, specifically on anything we should be aware of when making our assets to take advantage of those updates. Even if the answer is "do everything the same" we still need to have that certainty if you expect people to invest in development knowing major changes are on the horizon somewhere.

    Currently Unity 5 lists features like PBR, a new lighting system, Enlighten, etc with hardly a description. As a person looking to make content on Unity, I don't want to start making assets a certain way only to find out that when the update releases I needed to do all my textures differently, or set up my UVs differently, or build my meshes differently. We need to know how those changes can remain compliant with the current engine in the meanwhile.
     
  46. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    That's a terrible idea compared to a "NOT FOR COMMERCIAL RELEASE" watermark.
     
  47. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I don't think a watermark is too bad an idea, myself. It means you could use Pro features in your no-budget demo, which will look better as a result and hopefully make it more likely that you'll get the investment you presumably need to get a Pro license.

    On the down side, I guess there'd be nothing to stop dodgy people from using a watermarked Editor to work on a commercial product as long as the person who actually clicked the Build button had a paid one. I realise that's somewhat the case anyway, and that it's expressly forbidden by the license anyway, but this would still make it easier.
     
  48. HeadClot88

    HeadClot88

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    Why not a cheap (Sub $100 USD) version of unity with all the trimmings of Pro but for hobby devs?

    I think this could go over very well :)

    I am really getting tired of Unity3D and a lack of communication on a License overhaul if any...

    Personally I would drop unreal in an heartbeat and switch back over to Unity3D given the chance...
     
  49. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    I'll be totally honest here:

    I don't think that's really going to be a factor when pirating Unity is as difficult as dragging and dropping two files. If people are going to be that shifty, they'll just go all out and pirate Unity in the first place, I'd wager. I mean, at this point you've probably got more of an issue with people using an "NOT FOR COMMERCIAL RELEASE" build, making the rendering window 20 pixels taller, cropping out the bottom 20 pixels in a video editor and lying on their kickstarters; and even that's completely ridiculous.
     
  50. Whippets

    Whippets

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    "How can we serve you better"

    I like my subscription to Unity Pro, I couldn't raise the $1500 outright purchase price, nor do I want to see any sort of royalties percentage on finished games. Obviously my subscription could be cheaper - but then I'm bound to say that XD

    An evolving open and transparent roadmap would be great, so we can see what's on the cards and where we're at with each point.

    Proper integrated support for MMO client/server connections and comms. The current Multiplayer functionality doesn't cut it, and the 3rd party options just don't hit the nail on the head. Let's have it built in from the outset.

    Give me the 4.6 and the new GUI XD

    Keep up the great work; I love being part of the Unity community.
     
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