60 replies to this topic

[Kablammo11]

..is there one?

 

I sometimes wonder. Of course I wouldn't know, since the last update of CF I received dates from June 24, 2014. Mike, since you were so kind as to enlighten PG players about upcoming updates upon request, perhaps could you spare a moment to share some information about imminent CF developments with us?

 

It's not just for me, there's a handful of rather keen gents about, raring to have a  go.

Oh, and about those pot bunkers... Anytime.

[Brucey Mc]

Some of us would just like to get a start with CF, not bothered about making playable courses just yet

[Jimbobh]

Some of us would just like to get a start with CF, not bothered about making playable courses just yet

I'm with you on that, It's been in beta 13 months now.  something has got to give. I don't even want Pot Bunkers.

[Stephen Sullivan]

I've spent so much time thinking about designing courses in something new that I've now convinced myself it will be beyond me 

[Jeff]

I can't wait for CF.

I was also wondering how people were going to make their courses available to download in the future.  Will it be integrated with the Steam Workshop, or something similar to Apcd-Courses/Linkscorner?  I'd vote for the Workshop honestly, it makes it pretty dang easy to download and install courses.  As well, people can put up an alpha/beta version of their course, and whenever the designer updates the course, it will download and install automatically for all the people who are subscribed.  There are also ratings and comments for each workshop item that people can make.

[Kablammo11]

Just bumping this one up the list... so easy to overlook otherwise.

Then again, absence of an answer also constitutes an answer.

[Brucey Mc]

Silence is not golden in this case

[Dazmaniac]

I remember MJ saying in a thread that to finalise/validate a course to allow it to be played in PG required Unity Pro and they didn't want a situation of folks having to shell out for a costly piece of software just to be able to get courses in game, and it wasn't practical to have courses sent to PP to get them uploaded.

 

He mentioned they were working on getting the required functionality included in with the CF asset tool, so that it would work with Unity free. I guess this is one of the reasons for CF not making an appearance in n updated guise.

 

The above is just speculation going on past comments but ultimately needs AJ or MJ to give the definitive answer as to where they are at with CF.

 

[Brucey Mc]

Not too fussed about having a course ready to finalise and play, I reckon there must be loads of us just wanting to get our hands dirty in CF without any end product right away. Have any of the CF beta testers actually got as far as completing a course except K11?

[Stephen Sullivan]

The problem with course design is that you really need to be able to test it as you go along IMO.

I assume this wouldn't be possible without the facility currently only available in Unity Pro.

Seems sensible if a little frustrating for those of us wanting to design to hold it back.

[LasseThid]

Also I think their main focus at the moment is on PG.

Once they get a few more functions finished and added they might be able to spend a little time on building the required piece of software to allow user created courses to be added to the game.

I agree though that we need the ability to play test courses in order to improve on them, so it's a bit of a catch 22.

[M Rose]

I suspect the Pro vs. Free thing is a major hangup at this stage.

[shimonko]

Not too fussed about having a course ready to finalise and play, I reckon there must be loads of us just wanting to get our hands dirty in CF without any end product right away. Have any of the CF beta testers actually got as far as completing a course except K11?

Not to the stage of announcing it. The CF beta testers weren't tasked with creating a course but to test CF. PG already knows it can build 18 holes and doing the same limited things 18 times is a very inefficient and incomplete way to test a program. It is also very dangerous as K11 found out when he had to redo his entire course because of a CF bug. 

And even if others had gone down the route of creating a full course, K11 has had to send his entire project (huge) to PP multiple times with long turnarounds, which is simply not practical. I'm sure PP are dying to see what users will create, but CF obviously just isn't ready enough to even get hands dirty. It might not be bug related, it might licensing or code protection or tons of other logistical things.

 

There has been near zero support for the current CF testers over the last 6 months and we're still using a long outdated version from 8 months ago, so although CF has been in beta for a long time, it just hasn't been a priority lately. Getting more hands dirty will just mean a flood of PM and board messages that PP isn't in a position yet to respond to and possibly describing issues that have been fixed internally anyway. But that could change any day.

[dedBuNNy]

Okay, well that's not even remotely encouraging ... at all. From the stand point of players looking to design and build courses, those of us that have design backgrounds etc... and who actually came into this almost more wanting CF than PG..

 

In saying that... It's almost sounding like it might not even be part of the retail release, I mean if it's that far back and what if Unity says no? I mean I'm sure it'll get worked out..

 

What if I have a Pro license? Can I have it now? 

[shimonko]

Don't be discouraged, indeed it should be encouraging that PG are indeed happy enough with CF that beta testing hasn't been a priority for it. It's not far back at all, quite the opposite. Nicklaus Design has apparently been using it so their version must be pretty good. Our version from 8 months ago is nearly there.

Releasing it to the world is a different story though. Unity Pro doesn't matter--CF just isn't ready to be released for whatever reasons. Mike has also stated he's wanted to do updated tutorials.

I do firmly believe they will release it with the final PG though. I also get the feeling, and hope, that as CF doesn't appear to need much testing any more, they'll take in some people who have shown initiative and the patience to put the hours in that building requires to concentrate on creating courses.

[dedBuNNy]

Don't be discouraged, indeed it should be encouraging that PG are indeed happy enough with CF that beta testing hasn't been a priority for it. It's not far back at all, quite the opposite. Nicklaus Design has apparently been using it so their version must be pretty good. Our version from 8 months ago is nearly there.

Releasing it to the world is a different story though. Unity Pro doesn't matter--CF just isn't ready to be released for whatever reasons. Mike has also stated he's wanted to do updated tutorials.

I do firmly believe they will release it with the final PG though. I also get the feeling, and hope, that as CF doesn't appear to need much testing any more, they'll take in some people who have shown initiative and the patience to put the hours in that building requires to concentrate on creating courses.

 

I read that somewhere else, that Nicklaus Design were using CF in their process so I was a little surprised when it came across in here that CF was still an 8 month back beta test. Sounds like there is two versions of available, maybe?

 

If it's not on anyone's hurry up and make it work better list of things to do, then ya maybe there isn't all that much more work to do on it. Which I suppose might be good news, if it's doing everything it needs to in order to create a course thoroughly.

[IanD]

It's unlikely two versions. It's likely a latter version more comparable to the latest Unity available. Whilst we were testing CF, several versions were being released as quickly as the EA updates are happening. There were some conflicts naturally, but they were likely settling upon a version they knew and were involved with. Unity 5 is on the horizon and in in beta, so I'd expect it to work with that quite nicely once the retail hits.

 

As for the useage of the CF, I concur with Shimonko above. We tested as far as we could and there would be advantageous reasons for them to withold it until such detailed informations is also available. We were given few instructions, and those we did have, we failed to read/understand. I was told amusingly at one stage to RTFM... lol. I did, and I learned... However, we were almost being tested to see what our train of thought was too. How did we do when seemingly trying to follow the instructions, likely means we need better explanatives. Seeing is better than doing too... it can save you hours.

[Kablammo11]

Ian, the "several versions" released where not of CF, but of the EA courses, which needed to be optimized along with the game as it progressed.

And whereas testing CF was the main focus, to find out whether nincompoops like us could coax something out of it, the prospect of players and nincompoops like us designing and publishing golf courses is part and parcel of the entire project and a vital condition to its success. You may remember some lenghty discussions back in alpha where we pondered which of the two should come first, PG or CF, and we concluded that this was a chicken-and-egg-problem that could not be solved. The only promising option still strikes me to be to deliver both the chicken and the egg at the same time.

[IanD]

No K11, I meant Unity... several versions were released whilst we tested the CF.

[dedBuNNy]

From what I've read, Unit 5 seems to hold some pretty nice updates and new features entirely.  Some where I've been reading threads about the support for 4.x  in the future. Guess wait and see.