Is ANYONE Listening?

0

We NEED a Public Roadmap (that is consistently updated week by week) just like Unreal Engine's Public Roadmap here.

Please see my post over 3+ years ago about this same issue/problem, that NEVER seems to get resolved or fixed here:

https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/need-a-public-roadmap-for-lumberyard-tools-tutorials-development/2449

Lumberyard is a complete mess! We need "one click builds" (like Unreal Engine and Unity) where you click ONE button, and have a very quick build time. Not the several hours that Lumberyard takes! (and 98% of builds just continue to fail, and never work).

This has been an ongoing problem for YEARS, but NOBODY at Amazon is LISTENING. We need Amazon to LISTEN!

Watch this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX2nqPTC23s&t=9m8s

Every single instructor has been telling students to "stay away" from Lumberyard. It's an early Alpha, has no roadmap, is buggy, doesn't work, is NOT production ready, and is a complete mess! Just the installation process (and number of dependencies required just to INSTALL Lumberyard is completely insane!)

Look at Unreal Engine, and look at how SIMPLE Unreal Engine is to install. ZERO dependencies! ZERO! You don't have to worry about any Microsoft frameworks, .net, or ANYTHING! You just download the Unreal Engine installer, and <POOF> everything works!

You can add plugins (from the marketplace, and directly from within the EPIC GAMES LAUNCHER) and it even shows which versions the plugins are compatible with (and up to date plugins work with the very latest versions). It's extremely simple and easy to use, and build times are amazingly fast!

Lumberyard on the otherhand, doesn't work 98% of the time, and it takes a large team of engineers just to try and figure out what on earth is even happening, and most can't even get a build to complete (without errors) and NO INDIE STUDIO is going to use Lumberyard! NOT ONE! It would take a large team of 1,000+ employees, and a $500+ Million dollar budget (like Chris Roberts') to even mess around with Lumberyard, because that is how "unfriendly" the Lumberyard game engine is when it comes to installation and one-click builds (which is something that Lumberyard doesn't have and is a completely mess, and is terrible).

Listen to this review of Lumberyard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX2nqPTC23s&t=9m8s

We ALL sit around for YEARS waiting for these "issues" to get fixed, but they NEVER get fixed! Six years, and we are still having the same exact problems! Even Crytek has changed their build process, and Lumberyard, Unity are the fastest build times, with Unreal Engine being the absolute best! But Lumberyard is the absolute worst, and continues to remain the worst! Nobody at Lumberyard seems to even care, and it doesn't matter HOW MANY TIMES we voice our concerns, and it doesn't matter HOW MANY BAD REVIEWS that Lumberyard receives, NOBODY at Lumberyard will listen! Amazon just doesn't care, and doesn't LISTEN to their community! The Amazon Lumberyard developers don't listen to ANYTHING that we as developers say, and in 6+ years we still can't get ANYONE at Amazon to CARE or LISTEN to actual developers!

Watch this review of Lumberyard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX2nqPTC23s&t=9m8s

During the past year, since this last review, what has changed? NOTHING! What has changed since 5+ years ago when we complained about this? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Epic Games listens! Unity Games listens! Even Crytek listens! But NOBODY at Amazon Listens! Amazon Lumberyard Developers do NOT listen to the community!

We still don't have a marketplace. We still don't have an "easy to use" build system (that is FAST and "one click" and builds WITHOUT ERRORS).

We still don't have XBOX Series X support.

We still don't have PlayStation 5 support.

Lumberyard still isn't using a modern "up to date" game engine like CryEngine V (5.7)

Lumberyard still doesn't have a modern "up to date" game launcher like Unreal Engine 4.25 or CryEngine V (5.7.x)

We still don't have ANY photorealistic amazing Game Sample demo's (like those created by EPIC GAMES and Unreal Engine team). Nothing is ever made public, or released.

Look at what Crytek is doing with CryEngine 5 (and the newest/latest Crysis Remastered demos) and how Crytek uses these same maps to create "SampleSDK" for CryEngine users to use and learn from (and re-use the game assets/map in their own game development and to learn from).

Our Lumberyard games samples have dwindled from a AAA-quality game sample (from Crytek) the former CryEngine 3 SDK, with destructible vegetation, and working vehicles down to NOTHING! Lumberyard currently doesn't even have a AAA-quality game sample with realistic looking water, mountains, destructible vegetation, working vehicles, cars, trucks, boats, helicopters, aircraft, jeeps. Semitrucks/tractors.

Every game sample has been deprecated, and no longer even works with the very latest Lumberyard, and NOBODY at Lumberyard seems to even care? Is anyone even paying attention? Is ANYONE LISTENING?

The BIGGEST problem with Lumberyard is still it has extremely small map sizes (4K x 4K) and even Unreal Engine supports 20K x 20K (for multiplayer) and unlimited size maps for single player! How can you create a MMO with aircraft or even spacecraft with Lumberyard? (without having $500M and a large team of CryEngine developers directly from Crytek, like Chris Roberts has?)

This has been a feature request for 5+ years now, and Amazon doesn't listen!

We need support for large massive maps (unlimited size maps) and planets! We also need a demo/game sample, and tutorials on how to do this in Lumberyard!

Here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/support-for-streaming-big-maps/218/27

Please read ALL of these feature requests from Lumberyard 1.20 here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/lumberyard-beta-1-20-feedback/7157

Please read ALL of these additional feature requests from Lumberyard 1.24 here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/lumberyard-beta-1-24-feedback/8718/4

Still in Alpha/Beta after 5-6+ years, and good luck trying to even build anything in Lumberyard! Every single review says that if you are a student, or small Indie developer then STAY AWAY from Lumberyard! It's broken, builds don't work, and you can't even do a build without getting hundreds of errors, and every reviewer complains about the Martial Editor, Character Editor, and it seems impossible to create a cross-platform cross-play game that just "works" using Lumberyard. I was hoping after 6 years that Lumberyard would improve and get better, but it seems that the Amazon Lumberyard team DOES NOT LISTEN to it's community and community developer requests!

It's pretty easy to see where Unreal Engine is headed, but NOBODY seems to know what is going on with Lumberyard, or what is even happening, or WHY Lumberyard is still broken after 5+ years, and WHEN are we going to see a "production ready" game engine? (That small INDIE teams can use?) That doesn't require a large massive team of developers and engineers just to get a Lumberyard build to even build correctly, or even function? When are we going to see large planet size maps support (for MMOs) for flight and space sims?

See here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/support-for-streaming-big-maps/218/27

Ease of use, is NOT Lumberyard's strong point. No marketplace. No high-quality AAA-quality sample projects. The ONE sample project that Amazon has, looks like a 2-year old created it in under an hour! It's disturbing, and NOBODY at Amazon Lumberyard seems to even care!

When are we going to see "one click" builds (that take under one minute)? When are we going to see an "Easy to install" with NO DEPENDENCIES installation? When are we going to see a nice Games Launcher, identical to EPIC GAMES LAUNCHER, that allows you to download the very latest version of Unreal Engine, and also update older versions of Unreal Engine (4.25, 4.24.3, 4.20.3, etc.) without requiring completely new FULL downloads? When are we going to see an updater? That allows for updates to be installed without requiring a whole new FULL DOWNLOAD and full installation? (just to add/update a small tiny little patch?)

The Build Time and Workflow with Lumberyard is horrible! Look at Unreal Engine or Unity or even CryEngine 5 for some "clues" as to what you should be doing and working on! Look at the Unreal Engine Public Roadmap and take a look at where Epic Games and Unreal Engine are headed, and that should be "clues" as to what Amazon Lumberyard team should be working on. Amazon is always 10-15+ years BEHIND Epic Games, and BEHIND Unreal Engine.

We still don't have simple things like a publicly maintained and publicly posted ROADMAP (hosted on Trello) for Lumberyard that shows WHAT is being worked on (currently and in the future) and a public release schedule.

See here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/is-there-public-roadmap-for-the-engine/196

See here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/need-a-public-roadmap-for-lumberyard-tools-tutorials-development/2449

Watch this Lumberyard Review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX2nqPTC23s&t=9m8s

The Lumberyard Build Process is HORRID! Is NOBODY Listening? Does NOBODY care?

In 5-6+ years, NOTHING is getting any better! It's only getting WORSE! But NOBODY at Amazon is LISTENING, NOBODY!

No more excuses! You can say that you "inherited" a bad build process (from CryEngine 3.8.1) about 12 years ago, but look at CryEngine 5.6 / 5.7 and it has a substantially better build process than Lumberyard! But Look at Unreal Engine if you want to see a REAL Game Engine with a quick/fast/easy to use Build Process, and easy to develop workflow.

The completely nonsense of WAF, and having to deal with 2015 binaries, not working with 2017 binaries, and God help you if you want to try and get 2019 working! Nothing works! It's just a broken nightmare, and nothing is getting better. The build process is STILL A NIGHTMARE.

With Lumberyard, you need a separate software engineer, just to handle and deal with all of the build errors! This is NOT a "user friendly" game engine (like Unreal Engine or Unity). This needs to be fixed!

Why is this NOT fixed? Is Amazon sleeping? Does Amazon NOT care? Does Amazon NOT LISTEN even after hundreds and hundreds of posts, and tens of thousands of bad reviews telling everyone to STAY AWAY from Amazon Lumberyard, is that NOT enough for anyone at Amazon to even care? C'mon guys, wake up!

It shouldn't take hours and hours and days and weeks of online help searching and trying to troubleshoot the broken Lumberyard, because NOTHING works. It's a complete mess!

Epic Games and Unreal Engine have figured it out, Unity Games has figured it out, even Crytek has figured it out, but Amazon is completely LOST and CLUELESS and they still don't get it!

Is it arrogance? Why are you NOT LISTENING? WHY do you NOT care? Why is Lumberyard still not fixed? Why do we still NOT have a marketplace? (Where we can download game assets, projects, vehicles, buildings, maps, etc.) and why don't we even have a nice photorealistic game sample with destructible dynamic vegetation? Vegetation that can be shot, destroyed, and dirt/ground that shows tire tracks when you drive on it?

Look at the very newest/latest game demos (available from Crytek) based on the very latest/newest Crysis Remastered (that was creating using CryEngine 5.7) and look at the newest game sample projects (with beautiful water, destructible vegetation, and a complete remake of the old Legacy CrySDK) which has now been completely remastered and remade using CryEngine 5.7 (and the same environment, vehicles and assets used from the 2020 Crysis Remastered game by Crytek).

Real-time vehicle trains in deformable terrain that looks photorealistic? Why can Crytek create a game like Crysis Remastered and create a great game engine like CryEngine 5, but Amazon Lumberyard Team is still 5-8 years behind, and can't even create decent game sample projects! (like the new CrySDK game project that is based on Crysis Remastered) for CryEngine 5.7!

Also why do we not have destructible terrain, and destructible/deformable terrain (for tire tracks and mud) like SpinTires:Mudrunner?

Spintires:MudRunner was doing this in 2014/2015/2016!

This was back in 2017 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvXwFSwVhvY

Look at SnowRunner in 2019 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8A3LCnvJ5E

Look at how good the environment looks, and the great looking destructible vegetation, deformable terrain/mud/snow/ice.

This would be a GREAT TUTORIAL GAME SAMPLE with working mirrors, working steering, brakes, gas, working speedometer, working tachometer, working maps, working clutch, ability to enter 2x4 or 4x4 (AWD).

Ability to drive on different Roads, dirt, deep mud, snow, and ice.

Then create a wide variety of vehicles (trucks, cars, helicopters, aircraft, boats, etc.) as samples that we can use (and learn from).

Take a look at SnowRunner here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8A3LCnvJ5E&t=9m6s

SnowRunner here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glLCs1AwCwE

Also we need dynamic geometry (with dynamic LODs) like Unreal Engine 5's Nanite (based on NVIDIA's "Asteroids Demo") that you can learn more about here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/nanite-technology-in-lamberyard-engine/8609/9

Please read and ADD these features to Lumberyard (and get these put onto the public roadmap) here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/lumberyard-beta-1-24-feedback/8718

Also please read and ADD these features to Lumberyard (and get these put onto the public roadmap) here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/lumberyard-beta-1-20-feedback/7157

And more importantly, please add "Nanite" type technology to Lumberyard as discussed here: https://forums.awsgametech.com/t/nanite-technology-in-lamberyard-engine/8609/9

Please stop waiting years and years and years (and falling further and futher behind) and please get focused on get Lumberyard updated/fixed! Lumberyard at a bare minimum should have feature parity with CryEngine 5.7, Unreal Engine 4.25 / Unreal Engine 5, and the very latest Unity. We need feature parity, and I don't understand WHY Amazon Lumberyard Team is 5-10 years behind Epic Games Unreal Engine, and Unity, and even CryEngine 5.7! We need these same exact features in Lumberyard, and in 5+ years we still don't have large world and large planets support, we still don't have planetary maps, and universe editor and planet editors, and nothing has been done! We had "big hopes" for Amazon Lumberyard, but it has failed miserably over the past 5 years, and why aren't you refactoring the same technology that CIG is using, and implementing this technology into the core Lumberyard engine? Refactor everything, and add these same exact features and tools into Lumberyard! If CIG and Chris Roberts can do it (in 3 months), I don't understand WHY nobody at Lumberyard can do it during the past 5+ years?

Clearly you are NOT hiring the correct developers, or just don't know how to lead a development team, or create a REAL game engine. Crytek gets it. Epic Games gets it. Unity gets it. But Amazon Lumberyard is like a herd of cats, no roadmap, no clue what they are even doing, and always 5-10 years BEHIND everyone else in features (and ZERO feature parity between any modern engine). It will take Amazon another 10-12+ years to even "catch up" with Epic Games Unreal Engine 5 (and Nanite) with dynamic geometry and dymanic LODs, and why are we not seeing this in Lumberyard yet? C'mon guys! Wake up!

asked 4 years ago152 views
7 Answers
0

@REDACTEDUSER

"Lumberyard provides a growing set of tools to help you create the highest quality games, engage massive communities of fans, and connect games to the vast compute and storage of the cloud. Participate in the forums or learn about new changes on our blog." Seems not the same point of view with you with the factual experience you have today.

More, when you write "Clearly you are NOT hiring the correct developers, or just don’t know how to lead a development team, or create a REAL game engine." its something that clearly doesn't seem at all to match with Amazon values. If it's the case, they could reinforce their potential with some community members that could help them.

Thus it's sure that you should have got answers from the team as Amazon generally wants to earn and keep customer trust, even if it's actually more users than customers for LY, before the take-off of products that will use the AWS solution set.

More, as the team leader should pay attention to competitors you enumerate in your post, he should be obsess over LY users and give a clear answers to the forum questions and maintain a clear traceability answer/modif within the coming updates.

This forum is a way to get externally aware for the development team, and to look for new ideas from users coming from different domain and competencies, and that are not limited by “not invented here" as they could become due to their origin/licence with an old Cryengine game engine version ...

But what I hope for the development team, is that they really cook new things for LY. We accept that we could misunderstood the team for relativelly long periods of time, but they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term.

answered 4 years ago
0

[quote="Didier, post:2, topic:8810"] This forum is a way to get externally aware for the development team, and to look for new ideas from users coming from different domain and competencies, and that are not limited by “not invented here" as they could become due to their origin/licence with an old Cryengine game engine version …

But what I hope for the development team, is that they really cook new things for LY. We accept that we could misunderstood the team for relativelly long periods of time, but they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term. [/quote]

I am trying to remain "optimistic" but the past 6+ years have been an extreme "let down" by Team Amazon, and I just feel that Lumberyard is just falling further and further behind.

Its seems extremely unlikely that we will have a new "Lumberyard 2.0" version, completely re-written and highly optimized for next-gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X) and next-gen PC's (Fall 2020 and newer with PCIe4 NVMe SSDs with 5,000MB/s read/write I/O throughput, and newer 6800XT or 6900XT "Big Navi" graphics) and modern PC hardware that is comparable to PS5 and Xbox Series X (anytime soon).

I'm afraid that the Amazon Lumberyard Team is NOT "forward thinking" and is NOT ready for next-gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X) and NOT ready for next-gen photorealistic gaming! (We won't be seeing cinematic quality 8K and 16K textures, virtual texturing, and dynamic geometry "Nanite" system in Lumberyard anytime soon). Without a public roadmap, and no announcements or Tech Demo from Amazon Team Lumberyard, it is most likely not going to happen anytime soon.

It almost feels like Amazon Lumberyard has been "dead" for the past 4+ years, and we haven't seen or heard ANYTHING from Amazon since GDC 2016!

[quote="Didier, post:2, topic:8810"] But what I hope for the development team, is that they really cook new things for LY. We accept that we could misunderstood the team for relativelly long periods of time, but they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term. [/quote]

I've been waiting for 6+ years, and I just don't think it's going to happen. I've already waited an EXTREMELY LONG TIME, and in 6+ years that "waiting" has only led to more and more disappointments, and I'm beginning to feel that Lumberyard is completely "lost in the weeds" in it's current state, and it's unlikely that a new Lumberyard 2.0 (completely new engine/re-write) refactored and optimized for next-gen hardware and next-gen consoles is probably not coming anytime soon, and is most likely not even on the roadmap and not even being talked about or even worked on at Amazon.

Without a public roadmap, and without any talks at SIGGRAPH or GDC, during the past 4+ years, I have a bad feeling that we won't be seeing anything from Amazon anytime soon.

It seems like Lumberyard is "dead in the water" right now, and the team doesn't seem to be "forward thinking" (at this point in time) and instead of focusing on new and upcoming (future) technologies, they are always 3-8 years BEHIND in technology (with no hopes of catching up) and at least 3-5 years behind in "feature parity" with more modern and up to date engines (like Unreal Engine 4.25 or Unreal Engine 5, or even the latest Unity or even CryEngine 5.7 or 5.8).

Amazon Lumberyard Team doesn't seem to be focused on "highest quality games" and the current netcode mess shows that Amazon is not focused on "multiplayer" games (or cloud-based games). All that "vast compute" and "storage of the cloud" is completely useless if your game engine isn't optimized for true multiplayer MMO games! Look at Star Citizen, and how awful the multiplayer gaming works (crashes, and very low player counts per server). It doesn't seem like there is any hope for cross play and cross-platform gaming with Lumberyard (anytime soon).

Look at Epic Games Unreal Engine cross-platform (online services) roadmap/features (announced in 2018): https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-2019-cross-platform-online-services-roadmap

Here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200513005160/en/Epic-Online-Services-Launches-New-Tools-Cross-Play

Epic Online Services (for cross-platform cross-play) here: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/services

Cross-platform cross-play and successfully scaling your game requires numerous back-end services, and this is something that Epic Games knows how to do! (Just look at Fortnite!)

Amazon doesn't seem to be concerned (or even focused) on updating Lumberyard, keeping it current (with feature parity equal or greater than other game engines such as Unreal Engine 4.25 or UE5, or even CryEngine 5) and look at the "cross-platform cross-play" support that Epic Games offers and we just don't see these things in Lumberyard.

https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/services

[quote="Didier, post:2, topic:8810"] We accept that we could misunderstood the team for relativelly long periods of time, but they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term. [/quote]

I don't think we have "misunderstood" anyone, it just seems that for the past 6+ years they don't want to communicate with us, don't want to keep developers "in the know" and don't want to give us simple things like a public roadmap (just like you said).

Amazon keeps us in the dark, and it's NOT a good way to support a community of developers. Most of us used to complain about Crytek being bad, but Amazon makes Crytek look incredible! LOL!

Even Crytek's documentation, support services, and video tutorials (and game samples) look MUCH MUCH MUCH better than Lumberyard. It seems Crytek is actively working on CryEngine (and many of the new Crysis Remastered assets are available for free now) and we just don't see this type of support with Lumberyard. We don't even have a marketplace for free game assets, and don't even have a storefront or cross-platform cross-play. We also (after 6+ years) still don't have a public roadmap or even a date for when Amazon Lumberyard is going to leave "beta" and finally be a "production ready" game engine that can be used for production game development! (instead of only early alpha game development that will most likely be broken in future releases).

With no roadmap it's impossible to even know/tell what is going on with Amazon. It's been this way for 6+ years now, and it's only getting worse (not better).

I just don't know what the future of Amazon Lumberyard is (or is going to be) or whether Lumberyard will even be around in another year or so. It's very unclear, and there doesn't seem to be any real "guidance" or "leadership" at Amazon Lumberyard. It's even worse if you're a member of the community and just trying to use Lumberyard to teach/instruct students or find academic training materials (current up to date textbooks, project samples, etc.) for Lumberyard.

6 years is a long time, and we still don't have a stable (production ready) release for development, and the roadmap is as clear as "mud" with no guidance as to what is going on, or what is happening.

[quote="Didier, post:2, topic:8810"] they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term. [/quote]

I completely agree! An updated roadmap that is public and kept updated (and current) is something they should have done from DAY ONE with this project, and it's hard to believe in 6+ years we still have no public roadmap! (Amazon is completely "LOST"). They have no real sense of direction, and don't want to share it with developers. It's extremely difficult to even take Amazon seriously.

We don't know what is happening, or even what is being worked on, or even where this project is even headed (if anywhere). It seems like Lumberyard has been "dying" for the past 6 years, and just NEVER really got off the ground.

Everyone just leaves, and comes back 1-3 years later, checking to see if anything has changed, and nothing has changed. We still don't have game sample projects (everything has been deprecated, and CrySDK is deprecated) and we don't even have a AAA-quality game sample with working vehicles, buses, tanks, vehicles/cars, traffic system, AI pedestrians, etc.

[quote="Binky_LMBR, post:4, topic:3191"] This year at Siggraph we will not be a part of any panels or presentations. [/quote]

It's been this way for 4-5+ years now, and nothing seems to change.

Even in 2016 (the first and only SIGGRAPH that Lumberyard gave a presentation) the tech demo was great, but when we asked for the project samples, we were told "we are polishing it" and that was 4-5 years ago, and nothing is EVER released to developers, and everything just gets "abandoned" and "forgotten" and "left behind" by Amazon, and there is no Follow-up or follow-through in anything that is said by Amazon. It's been this way for 5-6 years now, and nothing seems to change.

Amazon doesn't seem to take the Lumberyard game engine development seriously, and unless you have a $200+ Million budget (and can afford a large team of developers like Chris Roberts and Star Citizen) it's unlikely that you will ever produce a game using Lumberyard (production release) especially since Lumberyard is still in early alpha/beta for 6+ years now, and has no immediate plans for a production ready stable version of Lumberyard, or even a roadmap with future features list (features that are being worked on).

We are just left "clueless" without any news, or anything from Amazon.

[quote="Didier, post:2, topic:8810"] they ought give us simple things like a roadmap, to show that they think long term. [/quote]

I completely agree!

answered 4 years ago
0

This post could be considered as a new test of listening and effectively, after 12 days there is no reaction from the LY team to explain their position or their engagement ... seems to confirm @REDACTEDUSER

Somehow we are more or less Amazon customers or why not future good AWS customers. Thus it's strange to be part of the Amazon team, as a LY team, and not follow the Amazon first leadership principles that is Customer Obsession : "Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. " .. am I wrong ?

answered 4 years ago
0

Hi @REDACTEDUSER

answered 4 years ago
0

Hi @REDACTEDUSER REMOVEDUPLOAD

answered 4 years ago
0

I see, I like all of them, and hope everyone gets implemented soon or later. (hopefully sooner 👍)

answered 4 years ago

This post is closed: Adding new answers, comments, and votes is disabled.