Unity 2.5 Coming Soon! (the official announcement)

my pre-joy about 2.5 is starting to drop.
Nothing against many new users but the stability of this board has dropped seriously.
Every second day now I'm greeted by database connection errors which is more than just annoying. (like the past 1.5 hours where I ran up that wall)

I really hope that will be adressed as soon as possible

 

Yeep, many users will come to this board soon, because Unity3d - is a future of gamedev. And many developers waiting for it now. Be ready for laags. May be good idea - to buy more powerful server before release of engine.

 

Having to buy new infrastructure to increase capacity because of user demand is a great problem to have.

Now back to my question...

 

I totally agree. Unity's design, cost and ease that it works with other tools will change the future of game development.

 

We're in the process of migrating the forums to a beefy new server as soon as our colo has it set up (should be a few days). So stability should go back to the days before we got famous.

Sorry about the trouble in the meantime, it's not cool and we don't want to let things stay like this.

d.

 

I can't wait for this to happen.. the forums as of late aren't the most fun to browse. I usually need to click a link, then go look around on another tab somewhere else till it loads. This can't come soon enough. Unity is such a wonderful thing and then.. there's the forums.

 

It could go either way, we're getting very close now and hesitate and pre-announcing the specific release date as that then "locks us in" to that date in particular and we'd rather have that extra bit of wiggle room just in case.

Amen to that, it's definitely put a hurt on the experience as a whole. But as David said above, we are already doing some back-end upgrades to relieve the stress and beef up for the wave of new users that are soon to arrive (so it's not just about catching up to where we are today but making sure we're far ahead of the curve in preparation).

 

That's completely understandable and my personal view is it's more exciting to wonder when it will be released and just see that it is one day than to wait for a specific day because it's been announced then when that day comes have to wait all day for the "download" link to appear. When Pixologic announced the release date for ZBrush 3 for OSX and that day came, it was a nightmare on their forums all day until the posted the download link late that night. It probably brought unnecessary trouble on them when they were trying to be nice.

You guys have already said you're aiming for GDC which is end of this month, I say that's enough of a "release date".

 

Curious:

With the windows release, will Unity be able to import other 3d model/animation formats?

Specifically DirectX .x animated models?

Or will is still be only .fbx?

 

I guess it boils down to, are we still looking before or around GDC for 2.5 to be out?

 

I just noticed the iPhone graphic on the home page has an arbitrary date on the display. Or is it...? I'm going to guess the release date is March 16!!

So, do I win a prize? Do I get a free Unity 2.5 pro license with asset server?

 

I am one of the few lucky geeks to know the exact release date of Unity 2.5, but I will share it with you only after Unity 2.5 will be released

 

Considering that says "Sunday March 16" and this year March 16 is on a Monday... I'd say you didn't win

 

Touché! Nice first post, welcome to the forums BTW.

@soulman901 and others, we don't have a release date to share so you just have to work with "around GDC" for now.

 

See, OldRod? Had you not pointed out the flaw in my contention, the Unity team would never have noticed, and, in a poof of faulty logic, would have assumed that they did intend on releasing on that date. You've botched it all up. Now I'm not going to give you my free 2.5 Pro license with asset server as I had planned.

Next you're going to go around telling everyone there is no Santa Claus.

 

WHAT!!!!

 

Does "around GDC" at least mean "in the month of March"?!!?

Come on just a hint!!
B

 

People, "around GDC" means "around GDC". The word "around" is not exotic and its definition can be found in any number of locations and it generally means slightly before, during or slightly after some referenced event (in this case GDC).

Once we have more information to share we WILL share it, asking repeatedly does nothing except wind you up with no good reason. Sit back, chill out and wait for it.

 

Hi guys, just joined the forum and is nice to be here.

Well after waiting several months finally the moment is about to arrive for unity 2.5 with windows editor support, since i dont own a mac.


I dont know if this is the right place to post this but if moderator thinks is not , feel free to move it to the correct forum please.


I have a few questions, if someone can help me clarify them for me:


1- any exact date when 2.5 be released? i ve been reading that the release will be late march 2009, is this still the same of has there been delays?

2- will there be a downloadable demo version of 2.5 for windows when new release is out to the public?.
or will there be months after release for the demo version?.

3- I see that one of the new features is the straming terrains which i like a lot, is this the seamless world feature we all talk about? will this mean that one can actually create zones and page then seamlessly as when the in-game player walks thru the zones wont even get a load screen? will this feature compensate the one large world map that will create issues while miltiplayers and abjects in a large world? ie: latency if it is online game, oversaturation game preformance etc..

4-I also see that unity is perfect MMO and virtual world client, both in the browser and stand-alone, now, it only mentions client side, how about server side?
What i really want to know is if indie version has the client-server feature out of the box?

5- another addon feature i see is the Asset Server, I am a little confused here, is this the actual server side for the client? and will this mean that in order for me to have a client-server game i will need to buy this addon? and buy the pro version as well?

6- I am an 100% artist 3d,graphics,web design, java, php coding etc.. with about a couple of years of programing experience, which i dont consider myself as a programmer at all at this point, but i read on reviews unilty is so simple to use with very little programming needed, what brings me to unity is that I want to create a 3rd person RPG game with a capability of multyplayer online or MORPG, I dont want to create the next "world of warcraft" which imho none will since wow is just a phenomenum, it was created on the right time and the right place, well at least on the indie side, I just want to be realistic and create somethign that is on my limited indie reach. I know creating an MORPG will take me some years of design which I dont mind plus have the time for it. but I want a game which can handle a few hundreads of players,
will this be possible with unity?

7- When i mentioned 3rd perosn RPG game logic, will i need to script it myself? ie: quest system, leveling by experience, spells, races, classes etc.. or is there an existing RPG code available here to start up with?
If there is not such a thing in unity out of the box, how hard will it be for me to script it, considering my lack of experience of programming?

8- is isntancing supported?

I have tested many game engines in the past 2 years, C4,leadwerks, Neo, dxstudio,torque, realm crafter etc......
Some of them i like, but still looking for them one I really feel comfortable with. I have been reading on Unity and it kind of catches my eye but since there was no windows editor at that time I could not check it out yet, so the time for that is just arround the corner and waiting to check it out.

What i need for my project only 2 of them seems to have or offer right out of the box of what i want:
torque with tmmokit from MoM and realmcrafter.

-torque tmmokit: their code is so complex, plus
doesnt handle instancing, although all the game logic is there for morpg, plus their resolution on the terrains does not look nice at all, i think they shrunk the character and objects to make it look like a big world or zones.

-realmcrafter: has all the features as well for morpg game logic, but as far as i read it wont even handle no more than 20 players online without the server crashing, so i heard in some forums. they said pro version will fix that on server side plus the eye candy of dx9 support. but the question is: when will there be a full stable release of the pro version. their small devs crew work in a very slow pase, probably they will release it in the next 2 to 5 years , who knows.

I have been asking in lots of forums with this same questions on diferent game engines, and the overall answer i get is:
"everything is possible" you just have to code it yourself.

To be honest i just dont want to reinvent the wheel, i just want to use something that i feel confortable with and have features i like for my project or at least make them or have the tools to easily to create myself without having to have 35 years of experience in game coding or programming.

all i want to do is a small nice detailed morpg game which i can host online for my family , friends and even public who wants to joing and have fun in a nice quality online fantasy 3rd person morpg game.

I hope i did not got you all bored with my long thread, any suggestions and or comments regarding my questions above will be greately appreciated.


I just want to know if Unity3d is right for me.

best regards to everyone and grats to unity in their upcoming new release.

 

1. There never was a date mentioned for 2.5
There have been rumors and assumptions but thats more or less about it

2. From what mentioned, yes

3. Seamless world is a lot more than that and requires a lot of work from your end.
The streamed terrain is just a nice feature to build the other 90% on (animation, rendering, effect handling etc must be optimized as well to work or you get streamed 2FPS)

4. Unity has no MMO server features at all.
the client side also is no MMO client or alike, its just an engine thats easy to use and offers a few features that favor it for MMO development (webplayer, webstreaming and streamed terrain loading with very little extra effort)
Its your duty to develop the required backend I fear or license something like NetDog / Neutron / SmartFox as base to build your own tech ontop to handle syncronization ranges, world interaction, persistency, and all the other things that are required to have even a base of an MMO

5. No, the asset server is as its name implies a server to handle your project assets. Its something similar to SVN, but for Unity.
As you can not use SVN or alike to share your project between team members, you will want to get that if you intend to work on such a massive scale project as an MMO

6. A few hundred players means that you need a dedicated server with a few smart solutions. Pretty well possible but will take you a while and will require some serious programmers. Unity will not offer that to you.

7. Yes, you will have to script all yourself or hire someone to do so. For an RPG / MMO you will require a team anyway so it should be possible to have 1-2 programmers on your team.

8. what kind of instancing. if this is related to MMO stuff, then as mentioned above: no mmo server so no.



As for RC: I don't think its a slow pace under the given license condition and prices. The development speed is likely pretty high with the given staff size as you soon will realize yourself. if you want to release an MMO within the next 18 months, expect that you need at least 4 advanced fulltime programmers and 6+ fulltime artists, otherwise you won't see it happen. This also holds for Unity.
Expect to pay at very least $100k for a basic MMO technology with a basic game going

Developing an MMO technology is neither something small nor trivial, as pretty well shown by HeroEngine / BigWorld which are selling their licenses at $500k - $1M per title

 

Welcome to the Unity forums. After reading your questions most of them are general Unity questions that have nothing to do with the 2.5 launch in specific. I'll answer them here but ask that you move any follow-up questions to either Gossip or a feature appropriate forum sub-section.

Tip: read threads (like this very one) and use the search before asking questions. In many cases, including this one, the answers you seek are already there and have been answered repeatedly.


----------------------------------------
Unity 2.5 related
----------------------------------------

No, we don't have an exact date, the best we have is that we're targeting a release timed with GDC (later this month).

We've answered this repeatedly, yes, there will be trials available for both Mac and Windows users.


----------------------------------------
General Product Questions (follow-up with these in another thread)
----------------------------------------

That is not a new feature in 2.5, that was introduced in Unity 2.1 which launched in July of 2008.

What's new in Unity 2.1

And yes, this allows you to create multiple terrains which you then load as needed to create virtually limitless environments.

For MMO work you'll use Unity for the front end and a proper MMO technology on the back end, using our HTTP and socket communication support. And yes, Unity Indie supports both HTTP/sockets out of the box.

Please make sure you look through the Unity Feature Overview before asking questions about features as many answers are to be found there. In this case, a quick check of the Unity Asset Server feature page shows that it's a tool to provide source control and collaboration features when working with a group of developers. It has nothing to do with client-side use nor as part of content delivery/hosting in any way. It's purely an author-time feature.

Let's stop right there for a moment. I don't care what tool you consider but creating *anything* multiplayer is going to involve writing code, and a fair amount of it, none of which is going to be "easy". We've done a lot to make it as simple as possible but given your self appointed "non programmer" status I encourage you to scope your plans a bit tighter and make something single player first, the consider going multiplayer.

Yes, but as stated above you _will_ need to write scripts for even a single player game, moving multiplayer only increases the volume and complexity of code you'll need to write. With that in mind ours is a much simpler tool to work with that say Torque as you do all that using scripting (C#, JavaScript or Boo) instead of needing to know C/C++.

Yes. There are many code snippets and components here on the forums, the community wiki, available in our tutorials or example projects that you can build off of though, so there is a lot of great starter material waiting to be used.

Yes, if you're referring to instancing of objects within your world. If you're referring to something on the back-end then no, that comes via your back-end tech choice.

That's likely the case with any development tool, Unity included. We just don't offer an "out of the box drag and drop multiplayer RPG engine", we offer a robust and capable 3D engine that supports a variety of game types and lets scripters (not programmers) jump in the deep end and get started.

Oxymoron alert! Anything multiplayer and online is going to be a bit tougher than you seem to be expecting. Certainly not impossible and definitely within reach of an extremely motivated individual with a lot of time, or for a team of folks dedicated for a serious dev cycle.

 

Hi guys, I'm switching from the C4 engine (Terathon Software) to Unity because of the 2.5 update. I've been playing around with the trial version on my macbook and I absolutely can't wait to see it reach it's full potential on my windows based gaming machine. You're doing a great job guys, keep up the good work.

-Steven O'Brien

 

thanks for your prompt answers gentlemen,
It sure answered all my questions. thanks again.

Sorry if some questions were already answered previously, I should of done my homework before.

If i have more questions I will make sure do my research before and post them in the right forum directories.


Dreamora: I thank you for your input, If you are the same Dreamora from RC forums, then I want to thank you twice, since i posted a few questions on their forum and you answered them with a fast and detailed reply as you did here answering all my questions, I like that. quick responses and active community. as for RC I did not mean to bash the devs or anything like that, nor to underestimate them or their product, in the contrary since my 2 major prospects to build my project from are them and Unity with their new 2.5 support for windows.
Is just that I ve read some other forums and realized some people were expecting rc pro since 2006 or 2007 and the beta has just been released just this past Dec 2008, so thats why I thought to see the stable full release will take longer then promised.
maybe I didnt do my wording correctly since english is my third language and I am trying my best to express myself.
I am pretty sure RC devs are working arround the clock and looking forward to check their product soon.


HiggyB: thank you Sir. I appreciate your time to anwser my questions, Ill make sure to post future questions on the general forum instead.

As for non programmer I stated, I probably didnt do the right wording as I had it intended. I actually ment 2 years of C++ experience and scripting for 10 years, so scripting is not new to me.
I stated even with those years of experience I still consider myself a noob when i comes to programming, I just know I know nothing compared to anything outhere, lol "figure of speech"

As for the Oxymoron Alert!, again I did not do the right wording, Sorry for that.

I actually ment a small content multiplayer online game. ie: 2 to 3 zones with nice details or nice quality content on it so other players like family members, friends of even public can signup and have fun playing my none commercial home made game.


I just want to clarify:
Although I didnt mentioned MMORPG ,My intentions were or are multyplayer online role player game. for a max of a couple hundreads of players if needed or player database grows in the future, unless a couple hundreads of players is considered a masively multyplayer online game. or MMORPG and requires a crew of 5 to 10 developers and artists with budget of 250k up to 1M dls to develop my dream home made game.

Anyways, sorry if I am taking unnessary space in Unity forums, as I stated before it was not my intention and probably did not express myself the way I initially wanted.

Thanks again gentlemen, keep up the good work and looking forward to check your new upcoming release.

Best regards.

 

Sorry to let the cat out of the bag

But... but... there's no Santa!?! :cry:

Guess I should introduce myself now that I've posted I'm a former/current/former/current Torque user, plus I've dabbled in most other engines out there. I'm really looking forward to Unity being available for us Windows users!!

 

Tom,

What's the release date? Will the windows version be able to make Windows standalones? Can I switch my 2.1 license from Mac to Windows? If the trial lasts longer than 4 hours, should I see a doctor?

 

Late March.

It'd be pretty weird if it couldn't....

You get two licenses for 2.5 and they can be for either machine (one windows, one mac, or two win two mac).

No, but ask them if Cialis is right for you.

P.S. I found your father on Google.

 

It was a joke...you weren't meant to answer any of those questions....

--Eric

 

:evil: JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!

Meh.

 

With a name like "infomercial" I'd expect nothing less. Actually, I expect more of that "sham wow" appeal...

 

LOL, actually, I have found a very large number of situations and uses for quotes/parodies from those commercials!

 

There's 2:30 of my life I'll never get back

Back on topic: so when's that 2.5 release date exactly?

 

Guys, I'm not like that. I can be very smart when I want to be. :roll:

On the other hand.......

SHAM WOW! YOU'LL BE SAYING "STFU!!!!!" EVERY TIME!!!

 

When will it be released? I heard it was today.

Just kidding. Oh but I do have one actual question... when it's actually released will e-mails be sent out immediately to everyone who gave their e-mail to be informed of updates, or do I need to camp out the website and refresh it 200 times a day? (not sure if this has been asked already)

 

It has, many times.


<sarcasm>
Our plan is to release Unity and not bother to tell anyone. We won't post new information here, we won't send out an announcement email, heck, we've decided we don't even want to update the website or post a news item, we'll do it all silently and with zero outbound information.
</sarcasm>


Sorry for getting salty and sensitive over all of this but seriously, do people really have to ask this sort of stuff? With such a huge release *of*course* we'll send out notifications through many channels:

- We will post a news item on our website (get the RSS feed, save yourself from hitting refresh daily).

- We will update our site with a new home page, new Unity product pages and a raft of other changes.

- We will send out an announcement newsletter email to the roughly 15000+ people that are subscribed to it.

- We will post on the forums here in the announcements area with a "we released!" post.

- We will put out a press release so the news/media outlets are aware of the release.

- I'll probably blog about it, "tweet" about it, update my Facebook page and wear a t-shirt that says "ZOMG, the questions are over!".

All of the above will be done simultaneously with Unity 2.5 going live on our store. So sit back, dream of what you'll make with Unity if you're not a license holder yet and stop being so antsy, it's not healthy.

 

What stuff are you talking about?

Anyway, maybe this has been asked before, but is there an exact release date for Unity 2.5. :twisted:

(sorry)

 

Yes, yes, that's all very well, but will there be a parade? If there's no Unity 2.5 release parade with balloons and floats and streamers and stuff, how can you expect anyone to know for sure when it's out?!

--Eric

 

Don't tell anyone, but the release date is Rombusary 52nd, 2009.

What? You wanted that on the Gregorian calender?

 

And clowns... gotta have clowns!

 

That is really wicked that 2.5 will be a free update! I'm curious where I can look for the updates? I have 2.0.2f2 and was looking to update to 2.1, are emails sent out or something?

Thanks,

Darren S.

 

Just download the "trial" and since you have a license it won't be a trial but the real deal. I've always found it a little counter-intuitive myself. Or maybe I've missed an alternative. In fact, I must have because that's only the indie version. Huh. How come I don't know this. lol. (Still, that will work if you're using indie)

 

Well, no, there are no versions. There is only the "trial". That is the only Unity that there is. It is the trial, and the Indie version, and the Pro version. The magic serial number unlocks all....

--Eric

 

Yes, the trial installer is generally the way folks get new builds after we release them, but you can also keep these two URLs handy:

http://unity3d.com/unity/unity.dmg
http://unity3d.com/unity/unity_iphone.dmg

Both of those will deliver the "latest and greatest" shipping builds of each application (today they offer v2.1 and v1.0.1 respectively). We'll have a similar URL for Unity authoring on Windows.

@dschnare: see my post above, that's how we notify folks of releases like this. Our announcement emails go to those that opt-in either when buying their licenses or using the form on our site's home page. Otherwise we push out news in a few ways: our site, our news RSS feed, forums, blogs, PR, etc.

 

So when did you say the exact release date was? (Sorry if this has been asked before)

 

was not mentioned, is not mentioned and unlike you need a pig flak to self defend yourself (ie pigs learn how to fly) it will likely not be mentioned until 0 - 4 days before ;-)

Thought I assume that Unity Tech likely prefers having their server online instead of having it dead hammered by page refreshers, I would guess it goes more towards 0 to -2 days actually

 

Frankly, Higgy, I'm amazed that you actually continue to bother to respond to "the question." Can't imagine how annoying it is to have to keep doing that. Kudos for maintaining your composure well beyond the point that most would snap. :wink:

Honestly, I'd like to see what happens if you stop responding. I imagine this thread would rapidly devolve into a chaotic mess of non-licensed posters demanding for a release date, and those who already have a license taunting them and egging them on. It might be an interesting social experiment. Just a suggestion...

 

Hi guys, waiting on the release of unity windows too so I can get on porting my 3d platformer engine. I used to use blitz3d and although great and basically let me do anything mario64/sunshine/galaxy could do with the use ofuserlibs etc, graphically it was dated plus I spent more time creating a very customisable engine than actually creating any games which I wanted to :-(

Really looking forward to getting it though, I just don't think about it so it's release comes quicker.

 

Tell me about it, if I had his job I'd have killed someone by now!! LOL

 

I don't know about you guys but this reminds me of the many road trips our family has gone on where my kids were young.

And after two or three days of ARE WE THERE YET

But now that they are almost grown they just sit there head phones on video player going celphone texting and I just drive.

Hmm, I kind miss the excitement of knowing that their was anticipation of the destination.

Oh well their is always hope for grand kids...
Wait by then I will be old and crabby :twisted:

 

Are we there yet?