Second Beta of Game Maker 8.0
The second beta of Game Maker 8.0 is now available for testing. You can download it, as before, through the bug reporting system at http://gm8.yoyogames.com. Please stop using the first beta and now only use the second beta. Note that the second beta is not compatible with the first beta.
For a list of changes made, see http://gm.yoyogames.com/news/changes.html.
We will soon also open up the bug reporting system again. Please though follow the following rules:
- Only bug reports. We no longer want to hear about wishes.
- First check the file at http://gm.yoyogames.com/news/bugs.html to make sure the bug is new.
- Also search the existing bug reports to check whether it has already been reported before.
After the first beta you all managed to make over 500 bug reports of which most were duplicates or not useful for other reasons. Please help us by only providing useful bug reports.
59 Responses to “Second Beta of Game Maker 8.0”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Hm… no icon changing? That’s a bit disappointing. Still, it’s better than GM7. I just hope you guys work on that, eventually.
I can’t wait for the Mac port!
July 20th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
“After the first beta you all managed to make over 500 bug reports of which most were duplicates or not useful for other reasons. Please help us by only providing useful bug reports.”
500 people took the time to report bugs, and you complain about it? That’s just bad attitude.
How would you have known if a bug had been reported or not? And do you expect the kids buying your software will know the difference between a useful and a worthless bug report? I’m not sure I even know the difference.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
[...] The second beta version of Game Maker 8 has been released and can be downloaded from the Mantis bug-tracker. [...]
July 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Nice set of updates! I’ll see if I can get around to trying it! I like some of the upgrades and bug fixes are always great! I tried the first beta and was loving the support for transparent pngs. Saves so much time from having to load them externally.
I have a question. Who has the ability to feature games? (Give a game the featured status on yoyogames)
Can any of the Mod’s do it? Only the Admins? Only YoYoGames staff (IE: Sandy, Mark, etc…)
Some of the ads on YoYoGames were a bit ummm… much. (Or should I say not enough (speaking of clothes)?) Anyway, it drove me to get Ad blocker for Firefox. So it’s no longer a problem for me. But you need to keep that in mind, especially for a game site aiming for kids. It’s mostly the Evony ads.
-Elmernite
July 20th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
@cactus the Mantis bug tracking system enables you to browse or search for bugs have already been reported
@elmernite the Evony ads have got worse over time: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html
July 20th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Cactus … if you actually went through some of the reported bugs you would see people were making requests or complaining about things GM 8 doesn’t have, rather than actually submitting bugs. Like they said there were also a lot of duplicates. Bug reporting is when you submit bugs that you find in said program, not suggestions, requests, or demands.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I in fact went through almost all of the reported bugs, and I still agree with cactus — it shouldn’t matter if there are a few stupid bug reports, it’s always better to have a bad bug report than no bug report. They should be grateful they got so many, not chastising. I could only hope that when I put games into beta I get 500 bug reports and suggestions.
Anyway, it’s a pity they are ignoring most of those useful suggestions, there was a lot of great suggestions in there that could improve GM drastically (such as a zoom for the room editor, or disabling bilinear interpolation for full screen mode).
July 20th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Wow this is amazing! One of my best birthday presents EVER! =)
July 20th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I agree that there were some good suggestions, but I don’t agree that bug reporting should consist of requests and suggestions. I too wish some of the requests were in fact implemented however, great ideas and the like have no place in a bug report. This isn’t a matter of what they should be grateful for. It’s a matter of them wanting to get the kinks out of the beta so we can all get a release. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk so I apologize if I came off like I was attacking. To me there is a proper way to make suggestions and give ideas. I think they actually need a suggestions system
July 21st, 2009 at 5:03 am
This should be read in a neutral tone…
Bug tracking can be used to suggest improvements. That’s why there is a wish option. Never ever tell people to stop asking for improvement. I’m pretty sure many of us spent more time using GM than the person who implemented it. A good many of us are better suited to make recommendations. Such is the way for any product. If something has annoyed your users for many years and they make suggestions on how to improve it, you should seriously consider instead of seemingly brushing them off as if their concern (and indirectly them, the user) were insignificant compared to your –huge- task of finishing of the next release.
There were not that many duplicates except for the access violation ones which could happen anywhere in the maker so I would not count that at all, it is expected to see duplicates. I saw many odd ideas and some even reported their coding problems… OK so what. Close and move on.
Genuine suggestions/bugs should never be closed, even if you don’t plan on adding/fixing them. That way they will always be there to haunt you and that is a good thing (for us).
I worked in the industry for 20 years. What you got as a result of your free access to the reporting tool is invaluable. I’ve seen worst from professionals.
We all can read the reports submitted, and I can tell there is exaggeration. If you guys think that a few duplicate/triplicate bugs are too much to handle and find it upsetting, you need to lighten up. I read the bugs through and through and I see nothing to complain about. If you see a duplicate, just close it with a duplicate note. Closing genuine concerns with statements like “Won’t do it” is not the way to use the reporting system. Note Closing the report but adding a statement like: “I’ll see if I have time” or “maybe next version” is much better appreciated. And yes, such statement will give us, indirectly, permission to check up on you in the future. Better than us leaving.
I reported a lot of genuine bugs and submitted a lot of intelligent wishes. So did many others. I even went through all of my “marked as fixed” bug to confirm. I mean I do that gratis. I must have invested at least 48 hours (on an off) in making gmks and testing this stuff. You pay us back by taking our requests seriously. It’s the only way to go. And really, it’s all we are asking for.
BTW, I do hope you will keep the tracker data for your next release (GM9), because I don’t plan on retyping every non-implemented/fixed suggestion/bug again.
Regard;
icu
July 21st, 2009 at 5:06 am
Oops, in above it should read
Not closing the report but adding a statement like: “I’ll see if I have time” or “maybe next version” is much better appreciated.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:40 am
Glad to see you making progress.
We appreciate your hard work over the years and providing us such a great tool to tinker with.
However, your treatment of the public who is trying to help YOU for FREE, is unprofessional and you come off as egotistical and rude in your bug replies.
You have mature adults helping you and kids of all ages, and you reply to them in such a way.
You have the programmer mentality of anti-socialness, but you really can’t afford to be that way because you communicate directly with the people you are making your product for.
If you are complaining about a puny 500 bugs, you should work in the game industry professionally and have 10-40 QA Testers sending you about 100 bugs a DAY. At least the people reporting them seem to be able to write, use a computer, etc; and you don’t have to teach them how to do their job. You have gotten better results then many pro game companies have for employees sometimes doing QA.
Major AAA games released have 5,000 to well over 40,000+ bugs in their DBs.
At EA, the cool devs from DICE on Battlefield 2 WANTED our suggestions and feedback on the game. So they had us playtest the 64 player levels with set rules and pre-reqs. Afterwards, we filled out our test cases and report about what worked, what didn’t, etc; every day. That made the game better in the long run.
No one cares about what can and can’t be done from the tester side of things. We just report what we find and what we think can improve something. It is our job, hence the Quality Assurance Tester name. You do care, and I understand that. But I think you are just handling your customers a bit rough.
If you are feeling a little bit jaded, or bitter about the project, maybe you guys should look into working with a professional PR agency to help market GM8 and GMac, as well as deal with the public better.
You all are doing a great job, and we look forward to the next release. Just try to be a little bit nicer to those who use your products and are trying to help YOU.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:50 am
Let me give a few reactions. First of all, comparing us to companies like EA does not make any sense we do not sell multi-million dollar products and cannot afford a QA team.
Secondly, my remarks were meant in the interests of all of you. I have limited time to work on producing the final version. All time I spend on looking at duplicates or errors that are not errors or bug reports that are worded in such a way that they are impossible to reproduce is time that is NOT spend on solving bugs or implementing new features. So the more of those reports there are, actually the less bugs will get solved (or it will take longer for the beta to appear).
Finally, I think it is reasonable to ask from bug reporters that they at least read and follow the instructions.
- Mark
July 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am
The second beta is looking nice. Too bad I can’t use it because I fear of future incompatibilites.
One feature I’ve always wanted for a long time is the simple ability to make to origin of a object .5 so that you can mark the centre of even-widthed objects (such as 32×32 pixels), giving them perfect alignment and rotation. That wouldn’t be too hard to implement would it?
July 21st, 2009 at 11:43 am
YES! I LOVE new functions!
-disk_size(drive)
-disk_free(drive)
-Added a variable gamemaker_version.
-You can now use high quality icons for your games.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:43 am
@elmernite @I will block Evony. Had the same issue with Civony, which I think is the same people I blocked a few months ago
July 21st, 2009 at 11:45 am
@elmernite…I was right CIVONY have changed their URL to EVONY. BLOCKONY’D !!!
July 21st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Thanks! Those ads were getting a little out of hand.
-Elmernite
July 21st, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Have you decided how we will we get the new version will it be a serial number.
I will not be buying it if I have to go online and activate then have to wait for an email containing my licence before i can use it or be told I have activated to many times.
softwrap sucks
July 21st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
@Mark Overmars:
Have you considered requesting a voluntary moderator for the Mantis system? His or her task would be to read every new submission and decide whether it should be looked at by YYG or not. This person could filter the duplicate submissions and assign only the good ones to you for a closer look, and leave comments to the other members about everything he dismisses. This way, you (and the GM8 development team as a whole) aren’t bothered with duplicates or obviously-bad requests.
I think that people who can moderate a forum like the GMC could in theory do this kind of thing.
It’s just an idea. Maybe give it a thought
July 21st, 2009 at 4:05 pm
@ErikLeppen
That is a really good idea. Have a “QA Lead” of sorts sift through the reports and then assign to Mark what really seems like a legit bug. That way everything, or most everything that is assigned to Mark is bug worthy, and he doesn’t have to worry about the dupes, requests, and such. Less stress for him to deal with. He can then act like a dev instead of a QA Lead AND Dev
@Mark
I understand a little bit better, and I’m sorry if I sounded too harsh.
No matter how clear the directions or the test case, the more people you have, the bigger the chance you will have people who don’t follow or read the exact instructions.
Most of the people helping you seem to be doing a good job so far.
We do appreciate all the effort you all are putting into this project. Some of us have projects, believe it or not, that rely on your GM.
A little QA story…
At one employer years ago, we had one tester who would report 100+ bugs a day, mostly As and B, with some others and suggestions here and there. Thing is, they were one or two sentence bugs, maybe with coordinates in-game, and that was it. We had 1-2 people assigned to double-check his bugs daily or elaborate on them so the devs would understand them better. He was just crazy good, just not a great writer. The Leads tried to have him report bugs better, but his bug count dropped severly and it hurt the project schedule. Production told them to go make him go back to whatever he was doing because his bug output and class (A, B, C) was way above everyone elses. Moral of the story is… that something good can come from slightly organized chaos.
Thank you guys for putting up with all that you have to!
July 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Second Beta Is Awesome Il create my First game that i hope will be good and then Sequel with Game Maker 8 =)
July 21st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
@Slammin Sam: O RLY ? Useless 3 new commands tbh – Maybe useful if you were using GM to create windows apps, but for game making, bloody useless….
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Greg24 your very wrong becase it’s bloooody useful
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 am
Well mate, be my guest and tell me how…….. Why in f**** name would I need to know disk size, free space and gm version FFS, this might be useful if you are writing an application/installer, but for games, what a tosspot of a response – if you want to bash me and say I’m wrong at least back it up or shut up !
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:47 am
With the memory bug fixed with this beta, my game not only runs in it, but has gone from over two minutes load time to under 30 seconds. Couldn’t be happier! (well unless it was like 25 seconds)
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:53 am
Ok, GameMaker is a great RAD environment for 2D games, no questions about that.
The two things it has been conspicuously missing for professional results have been 1. Support for png transparency, and 2. Double/Triple buffering to eliminate screen tearing.
#1 has been dealt with very nicely with the new png support with masks, superb.
#2 is still a fatal problem, tearing in games not only looks terrible, but is a disincentive to the game developer that in spite of his best efforts, he’s defeated by the limitations of Game Maker.
Please make double/triple buffering the highest priority before release of Version 8, even delay it until this can be done. Game Maker without screen tearing while scrolling will be worth the full price, and make it a truly valuable upgrade.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:13 am
TheHangmansGhost.
You’ve obviously never looked far into Game Maker, as in settings > resolution, try enabling synchronising to avoid tearing.
However tearing seems to be very rare for me and its not really an issue, so I don’t tend to bother enabling that.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:33 am
Spaceoff,
Of course I’ve tried synchronisation. But it doesn’t work, as many people can attest.
Also games downloaded from the yoyo site exhibit tearing too, no matter what machine I try them on.
So I reiterate that double/triple buffering is an absolute essential, and this so-called synchronisation just doesn’t cut it.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
I would love to see easier access to double click options for the mouse.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
I would love to see easier access to double click options for the mouse events
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 am
Don’t forget the ability to make to origin of a object .5 (eg. 15.5). It would be so much easier if you could mark the EXACT centre of even-widthed objects (such as 32×32 pixels), giving them perfect alignment and rotation.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
TheHangmansGhost, The synchronization does work, I never have had any tearing in any games I have made and still don’t to this day when I switch it on. I haven’t ever heard of anyone saying it didn’t work so I’m not sure where you get “many people can attest”. As for PNG support … GM7 does allow use of PNG files although they aren’t implemented into the interface itself which has been fixed in GM8. I have used PNG files for quite sometime. They have to be externally loaded but that’s not a bad thing since load times are decreased.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Sorry I forgot a few things. GWatson, in about 5 minutes I can whip you up a double click example with just a few lines of code … just pm me on Yoyo. Killer Bug, object origin is dependent on sprite origin. Center the sprite origin and you’ll get the center you are looking for if I read your comment correctly. If I read it wrong, a little GML goes a long way.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
GM user since v3. I feel connected and devoted to GM now even though I haven’t made a full release yet, lol.
GM7 -> GM8? There’s some neat little differences in the editors but I’m looking more for speed and performance. I would pay for the upgrade simply because I haven’t had to make a payment since GM6 released. And it was worth it. I hope GM8 is worth while as well.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I wish GameMaker supported the MNG format, which is like Animated GIF but with 24bit support where GIF supports only 256 colours…… This would be great for adding some custom rendered effects in your games.
Can you imagine if Game Maker was written from the grounds up in pure machine code ….. of course that is unrealistic – but what plagues GM right now is speed – and that is what is keeping people away – otherwise if GM produced non laggy, fast games, I’m sure it would attract millions more customers.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Ohikaru, My experience of the beta runner in GM8 has felt a lot faster. I took a few games I made on GM7 and ran them in GM8 and not only did they load faster they seem to run smoother. I’m not sure they ran faster but the little hiccups seem to be gone.
Greg24, I can’t say anything really about lag. I wouldn’t blame GM as much as I would the developers. Take a few games from RedSystem for example. They have alot of graphics and quite a bit of action and I haven’t ever had any lag due to the fact they coded their games well. I also over the years have realized how I myself coded things the wrong way in my early days which produced lag and overall slowness. However today, my experience is far greater and no longer have issues with that. GM has limits but it’s all about how games are designed around those limits that make them lag free and smooth.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Let me put it this way – games on my bloody mobile run faster than GM.
July 24th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Jess Horton, screen tearing is indeed an issue, and I just noticed that Mark has acknowledged the problem:
http://gm8.yoyogames.com/view.php?id=400
“Even though I know it is sometimes an issue I have no idea how to fix it (because of the other functionality of Game Maker it is not possible to use tripple buffering for this).”
So we’re not going to see a fix in GM8, and perhaps not ever.
A shame really, since Game Maker gets just about everything else right.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Jess Horton, I know that an object’s origin is determined by the sprite origin, but the thing is, the origin is essentially a single pixel which acts as the rotation point. With even widthed/heighted sprites, the centre origin is not in fact the centre pixel, as there is none.
The origin should be able to be set halfway in between two pixels so that this rotation is perfect.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:31 am
greg no you didn0′t looked how useful other features are like sprite editor that has so much new features and cool ones.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Greg24, nevermind what I posted earlier. After reading some of your comments … rationality is out of the question.
Hangman, my apologies. I wonder how come the tearing seems to go away for me? I really had no idea it was an issue, Thanks for the link.
Killer Bug, I hear what you are saying. You mean if you have let’s say a 19×19 sprite then the center would technically be 9.5 but in GM it’s not … it rounds down or up. Is that what you mean? If it is then my apologies cause I have come across that as well. It’s mainly the reason I stick to the 16×16, 32×32, and etc. It seems to round the origin close enough for me to see perfect rotation.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Greg24, if you don’t like GM, then why are you even bothering with it? We like it, you don’t. Is that really so hard to accept? GM isn’t for everyone, but there are plenty of other game making programs out there.
July 25th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Almost Jess Horton. Except the origin is inexact with EVEN widthed sprites, not the odd ones. So in that case you require odd-widthed sprites to get perfect rotation.
Try rotating a stationary 32×32 sprite. You’ll see it’s inexact.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Chris McCoy Says:
QUOTE:
And very hard ones too. Game Maker is the easyest Game Making Program there to exist… it’s not like some directX with they create awesome games but in dirextX they need 10000 Lines of Code for yust a simple game of Game maker with 50 Lines of Code.
And you don’t realy know how powerful 8.0 is i tell you that beacause of this improvments The MAIN Trigger event that can be Very Powerful or mostly sed as powerful as all Events together.
and you can create new events with it + extensions and Very good Code Fixer you can Create easly the Best 2D game ever Existed or even a very good 3D
Mark if your reading this than you should know that few people will create games that will be mindblowing…
July 25th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Couldn’t have put it better myself, I’ve looked at some of the other programs and good HEAVENS, they’re complex! The only other program I know that’s easier than Game Maker is the RPG Maker but is heavily restricted compared to the Game Maker.
The only point I was trying to make is that I think everyone’s tired of hearing how “crappy” the GM supposedly is when some of the issues sound like personal computer troubles to me.
July 25th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
As GM8 isn’t compatible with GM7, would it possible to have a convertor included with GM8, i.e. so that I can turn a GM7 game into a GM8 game, and thus open it using GM8?
July 26th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Is it possible that YoYo would create a down-converter, that would allow import files to the .gm6 format, so I can finally look at some of the .gmk files people put on the web?
July 26th, 2009 at 3:15 am
@kiujhytg2
GM8 already can play gm7 games, ive tried and it works perfectly (exeception being extensions) it even changes the back color to clear alpha channels. but for turning it back so you can work on it back in gm7 is problematic…
also, i like the alpha channel stuff with gm8, on my first game i didn’t know the background was the bottom left corner (and yes, i know that now), so for people that start gm8 like i started gm7(diving in head-first not reading a word of the help screen) it would make that simpler.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
nitemaregamer,
Which GM8 beta are you using? The 1st beta of GM8 can open GM7 files, but the 2nd GM8 beta doesn’t open GM7 games; it claims that they are corrupt.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I take my previous comment back. It seems that some of my GM7 game work on GM8 but not all of them. Bizzare
July 27th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Tough luck ! Now you lot will go through what all game devs go through trying to re-adapt games to new engines – what do you expect, a magical solution to transform your GM7 into GM8 – looks like you’ll have to work your arses off porting and feel what actual devs do all their lives! getting you ready for the real world !
))
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
man i love it! especially the new Coding stuff and the triggers…
man, this isn’t about the game directly, but i accidently opened my game in it, and now it only works on GM8 so i can’t upload it… dang, hate betas…
August 12th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
GM8 = CRAP
No significant updates – reminds me exactly of GM6 to GM7, but this time even LESS bigger updates – we waited over a year for a new sprite editor and PNG support and little changes ? bloody hell ! most of us expected something BIG and significant.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Greg is right, some major changes would help, anyway, I could convert PNG to BMP or JPEG so Dang easy!
This isn’t even a minor update!
Just another stupid plugin and new update for an extra for GM
*sigh* I goes to show ya, not everyone makes huge updates anymore, just some stupid plugin rewrites or something. I’ve heard some people hate GM7 and use Earlier Versions.
Not the first time I’ve seen this.
Later.
August 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am
If support for more audio types was added that would be cool; but what game maker really needs is built in functions to adjust the audio it already can import. Ex. Volume levels on mp3 files (not just midi!)
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 am
sorry i wuzz l8 I was off my internet for a ban from my mum and dad but i spotted a bug it was that transparent
backgrounds only switch to black ones and are not transparent at all. I know this should be a bug report but
I was in a hurry. I am restricted to one hour of internet a day now.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Why don’t you report the bug in the mantis system it’s bloody useless writing about bugs in a blog they won’t read it and they won’t take it into consideration – post it in the mantis – this is where they actively read reports and quickly fix it if necessary.
As to GM8 I am very anxious to see the quality of the resources we will get (the sprites and other) the ones that come with earlier version of GM are bloody rubbish, I hope that YYG contracted good people and that we’ll get useable sprites and stuff at least that and a huge variety would make it worthwhile.
I think if they provide good extra resources, a better help system (more examples and coverage of the entire GML), fixing of the tearing problem, C++ runner and OpenGL it could be considered a good update – otherwise you are bloody wasting your money for something that should have been called GM 7.1 FFS!
August 28th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I think that GM 8.0 will be GREAT but minor improvment i mean Trigger event will be very useful and new code editor but he could do only half of fuctions in Image Editor and make it useful and give the other time making useful and damn needed fuctions and variables and not making Image Editor better than half of profesional Drawing Programs !!! ARGH !!!