I would not worry too much Carsten about providing CD's,whether selling them or not,you're a genuine "nice guy" and it's good you think of others who don't have very fast download speeds,but I think we can assume most people already have good cable,asdl connectivity and super machines to go with it.
However,selling CD's,or online content such as the Ca3D-Engine for would-be hobbyists and possible commerial gamemakers is another thing altogether and well worth a deeper look,how better then,from someone who is a 3D artist hobbyist,would-be gamemaker to comment on exactly the sort of thing people like me look for while trawling 3D game engine sites for an cheap engine that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to operate.
Torque? got that,it's not very user friendly imho,the large terrain issue with the TGEA is still a long way from solving.Garage games give a good service,help is there but you need at least basic knowledge in C++ to even get it compiled is a headache,especially if you're more geared around making models,textures,animations etc etc the list is endless...so from a perspective of a frustrated "game maker" what do I need,or anybody else that is,or even,what am I looking for that would make me hand over $200 for an indie license to keep me happy?
I'll tell you what I would like to see....
1.Large terrains which can be accessed for editing from a gui console.
Let me dispell the myth of "large terrains" because any idiot that thinks he wants a 25+ km square terrain for his game,especially for a FPS has got a nasty little shock.I have had experience trying to populate a 25km square map and I tell you it's no fun,especially when you want to be realistic.I am not saying it's not possible to vegetate or forest such an area,but if you want to hone in on detail like I do,and make it look good,anywhere from 5-20km square is plenty,unless you can develop magic tools to spawn and seed everything and lets face it,it would look crap,close up anyway,and the point of it all for me is virtual reality.
Of course,making rooms I want to include here,but the most important thing is the GUI in the Editor.The FPSC game creator has an excellent gui and is pretty friendly,so is the A6 gamemaker,but they don't have the "large" terrain support,not yet anyways last time I looked.So to cap it all in this section,all things to do with making your world goes here and a possible punter like me
doesn't want to spend 3-4 years learning how to code C++,you Carsten have done that part for me
all I have to do is use your great UI to let my imagination go rampant.
2.A decent model base.
It don't have to be GRAW quality,thats my job,but it needs to be a realistic base to work from.You only need one playermodel,thats all you get from Torque,but the AI and animations need to be half way decent and be upgradable and most importantly...easily introduced into your game world.There is always going to be some coding to be done,attaching sounds etc but this can be easily handled with note pad.Basic stuff included as ai following,knowing its being shot at etc etc,clever enough to take cover.This include basic vehicles,cars tanks,hell they can be poly block for all I care as long as the wheel and tracks turn,the guns fire and you can jump from turret to turret,boats,aircraft and all accessable from a friendly user gui,and modable from programs such as GMAX etc etc.
If you can provide this I'll pay,and I can't think of anyone who actually deserves to take that step more than yourself all the work you put into your baby
was well impressed with the quality of the demo.
Anyway end of rant
I'm gonna DL your SDK,guess I'll be needing to learn a whole new set of file types,I haven't tried the sdk for at least 2 years looking forward to delving into it.Lol