Feedback Unity Version Skip One Year: "Unity 2021” preview should be “Unity 2022” to be clearer is a WIP

Dear CEOs,
We are using the Unity 2018 and we are in 2019.

In the car industry, we start designing and making a model 10 years in advance. Let say we start making a car in 2010 and we call it 2010; when is ready, let say in 2020, nobody will use that final pretty stable car because it is called 2010.

If you allow me to suggest, give you more margins when you go ahead.

MechEthan

Perhaps Unity 2019 features should have been called Unity 2020 (Preview) to make it clearer to new users that it is a WIP. So (as for example) now on March or in April 2019 Unity is releasing Unity 2018 LTS ready (and should be Unity 2019 LTS) and on January 2020, the Unity2018.4.18f1 LTS instead of the U2019 or 2020.
If you skip one or two years in the branding version, the LTD arrives when the year starts (and not a year or two later). In this way, beginners with no experience can look to a lot of intermediate tutorials on YouTube about that particular robust version and do not experiment with a WIP software in the evolution stage creating noise on the forum. You take out completely beginners from alpha, beta and final stage U20XX.1 .2 .3.
Experts and intermediate users feel comfortable experimenting and creating the future. Skipping a version, the user skills go up and there is a clear roadmap feeling of the stage of progress. Helps to separate completely beginners form the WIP process.

If you jump Unity2021 making Unity2022 for branding purpose we will miss the nice continuity numbers 2021 but I think users can understand that.

Is just a feeling:
Skipping a version is clear when you Unity Engineers talk at GDC about the new upcoming features that take years of development as for example the new UI, nested Prefab or HDRP 2017, ECS 2018 or HPC# 2019. Users will feel the progress and does need to wait years before implementing them. Now in the actual process, everything looks late. And instead, we need to wait because is clear is not ready. Shifting the year the problem is fixed because ower implementation will we (much later) the estimated new UI 2018(including text mesh pro), nested prefabs 2019, HDRP 2020 preview, ECS 2021 preview with HPC# 2022 preview, etc. So skipping two years can also be an option to separate: beginners, intermediate, advanced.

My English is not good but you get the point.
Thank you and your awesome team.

SUGGESTION 2022

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/the-state-of-unity-packages-in-2020.841159/page-9#post-5860270

 

@Charles_Beauchemin Yes, I completely agree. But instead of making a Unity 2021, jump that year and call it Unity 2022 instead! Please
This is much better for new users as well. New users are looking for Unity 2020 on youtube when actually need to learn how to use Unity 2019 instead. And that creates a lot of confusion of features not ready and noise in the forum!
Thanks for listening.

 

As for my experience, Unity Tech versions are equivalent to betas in terms of stability, breaking-compatibility changes, and version support along their releases. Only the latest point version is supported. For example you can't expect features or fixes to be backported from .2 to .1. You can only move forward for getting the bug fixes (along with the new bugs).

Therefore it makes more sense to skip one year and name the upcoming tech version Unity 2021.1. This means Unity will be developing and improving it during 2020, and will be released as stable LTS version in its year, 2021. Then the two year support would end in 2023, which is 2021+2. Everything fits.

 

I'm with Unity on this one, I think it's a stupid, marketing driven trend to +1 every year. It's like adding X's to your gamer tag.

"Basketball 2020"! But it doesn't contain any of the new players from 2020, it's just trying to one-up the competition.

 

I think the car analogy is not a great one because the models sold this year are labeled with next year's date. That would be like renaming 2019 LTS to 2021 LTS. Which sounds like the stupid market driven trend tbillington talked about.

I agree with Edy. The tech stream is more like a beta, and the LTS is the closest we get to a stable release. Unity have pretty much admitted this themselves in their latest blog announcing the release of 2019 LTS, stating that the LTS is now the recommended version of Unity to use, rather than the tech stream. I think it makes sense to be named after the year it is expected to ship (as stable/LTS) and not after the year it spends in beta.

 

It always was this way. Nothing new. They are talking about this list, the 2019.LTS is the first one, since that is the latest non-beta or non-alpha release.

 

The way they worded it in the blog post makes it sound like even after 2020.1 is released, 2019 LTS will still be at the top of that list. But I suppose there is some ambiguity there.

 

Yeah, you're right. Although I guess it depends on our leaning on the matter if Unity should perform a walk to Canossa or not.

 

That's exactly what will happen. It has been officially confirmed in other forum posts.

 

When you buy a car on June 2020 they give you the 2020 finish version not an unfinished WIP 2019 version. They make you a discount for the old 2019 finish version.

 

I stand corrected then.

 

Unity Initial
INTENTION

As you can see, Unity 2019 LTS should have come out half a year ago. and at this point 2019.4.25
Since starting software development is easy but finishing it in time is really hard, here is my optimistic estimation.

ACTUAL

Spoiler: Unity 2020LTS

Unity 2017.4.0 was released on March 20,2018 ends on April 2020:
Unity 2018.4.0 was released on April 8, 2020
Unity 2019.4.0 was released on June 9, 2020
Unity 2020.4.0 could release on July x, 2021 (was too far away)

Unity 2017.3.0 was released on December 19, 2017
Unity 2018.3.0 was released on December 13, 2018
Unity 2019.3.0 was released on January 28, 2020 (and February 24, 2020 HDRP Out of Preview for 2019.3)
Unity 2020LTS could release on February x, 2021

January 2021 will could be still using not finished product 2020.2.

SUGGESTION
or expected

 

I wonder why it still shows 2019.3 now with 2019.4 in the list as well.

 

Maybe they want to give time for users to switch over?
I had the 2019.3 installed just a couple hours before this screenshot and I haven't restarted the Hub.

 

That's my point. New users will be looking for 2019.4 learning content in the second half of 2020. And it looks like too late to make that learning video documentation section ready.

If 2019 was called 2020.4 instead, that would be obvious. It is a little bit late because arriving at the end of the year. So much better if it (instead of 2019.4) was 2021.4 Documentation and Learning ready for 2021 coming year instead of in debt. Because at that point there will be also time for good Youtube video tutorials that fit in the year with a robust finish product.

Now all 2020 youtube Video tutorials using Unity 2020 are in the alpha or beta. And the new user does not understand that.

 

I think you stuck with this very much. Average users understand that 2019.X, 2020.Y are version numbers and not actual car models or whatever. It's not like Unity is the only one software who uses this form of versioning.

 

The fact that almost all the population and nations live with less as possible or in debt inside a house under construction that not mean that it is a good example! There are better ways to live. And we are constructing that word by examples providing solutions. Aviation Industry is a good example that provides efficient safe reliable working machines to be in. And Unity is one good solution. But not good example; The way that Unity approach to number system reflects a way of behavior and affects the way behavior of the users.

It is nice to be at the edge, but new users better if the flight in a safe environment finish solution. So that they do not complain about using Jun 2020.2 not finish product with no video tutorials at all about for example promise done about streaming! A UI Toolkit: Theming example? Because it is WIP. Do I need to explain that to each new user for each new product since 2017 to eternity?

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Another reason is for example Bolt integration with 2019LTS not ready