...that latest blog post certainly took me by surprise!
I've been watching the whole Construct 3 announcement from the very beginning, and I remember being so pumped to see the first blog post that gave the first piece of information about C3, which was... insanely underwhelming. Upon reading it, I had a sinking feeling and felt demotivated, and predicted a lot of people aren't going to like this. (Also I was mostly worried about lack of offline support but that got clarified quickly).
I continued watching, reading each and every blog post, and I didn't really feel affected by what was announced, although I did find some stuff interesting such as putting C3 on mobile, but it didn't make me feel inclined to subscribe to C3.
Upon the beta release, I checked it out, thought "ah...c2 in a browser..." and thought this is game over for me now; blog posts are done, beta is out, this is it... No new fancy graphics stuff, no performance enhancements, no intricate control over things to lower CPU/GPU/RAM usage, etc.... ok... I figured C2 would eventually get phased out, so may as well move on from this editor that I've grown exceedingly comfortable with.
Then KAPOW, checked out the forums during lunchtime, saw someone mention a blog post, read the blog post...
https://www.scirra.com/blog/204/the-future-of-the-construct-3-runtime
A rewrite of the runtime? Admitting the runtime may have some issues/performance issues due to compatibility code and pressured workload as Scirra was only starting out as a business when writing the runtime (very respectable to include this in your blog post)?Mentioning optimisation and lowering memory usage, etc? Hot damn. This is definitely worth the money from me now, even if I'm only a hobbyist. This feels like a professional route to take, offering optimisation and capabilities that were only possible for Scirra to implement and users were unable to do. (I hope I haven't misinterpreted the blog post at all, correct me if I'm wrong at all! )
I don't post much at all and haven't shown evidence for this, but in my experience, I'm definitely bounded by CPU issues and I'm strictly developing for Windows. Having multiple particles, or lots of platformer enemies onscreen, it racks up fast. Perhaps over the years, I should have been more vocal about my CPU issues, but this blog post signifies that this issue can change, at least improve substantially. Games could be able to be big and grand.
Ashley , If this is the route you are taking, I'd love for you to take this opportunity before you begin getting too deep into developing the runtime, to ask the forum/paid users/professional users/random homeless person from London/forum section for subscribers, for their opinions/ideas that they feel would aid them in creating a large or 'busy' game (Busy, as in, lots of stuff going on onscreen). I have a handful of suggestions I'm eager to share, probably stuff that has been mentioned in the past, but I don't want this post to be another bombardment of seemingly random suggestions. Perhaps peoples suggestions would be unfeasible, or impossible within HTML5, or perhaps it will enlighten you on what people have discovered when making a large/busy game, but I felt if I had certain things in Construct, I could go above and beyond in development with your software.
I feel much more willing to subscribe and support the company, almost certain about the 1st year, even though this is only a blog post that isn't promising anything, but it does come across as eager and passionate; like saying "No" to Canvas2D and pushing WebGL to be the standard, to be able to provide much more graphical stuff for us. I hope I remain in this mindset on the official release!
You guys seriously done this whole process backwards! Start with this blog post, then tell us the other features, end with the browser-based + subscription blog post. I would have had a consistent stream of excitement if so and would have only queried offline support right at the end!
p.s. the multiplayer plugin is awesome, I used it a lot and will continue to use it when I get back in the grind of development.