Hi all, So i hate to do this but I just feel it's a currently unfair situation. I'll structure this best I can. The issue - We have a PC Editor allowing us to create our own creations. However, it seems from my point of view, being active within the community and closely following DTG, unless you're a Third Party, if you need help, you are relying on pure Community. Now I understand DTG are busy working on new content and fixing where they can current content but I feel if you put out something that public can use you need to be prepared to help people that need help when stuff doesn't work as it should even when they've done everything they should do. The Possible solution - Either DTG bring on a Editor only team that can learn and get to grips with the in house editor but then can also translate that to Public editor and then be able to help people that are asking for help on edge case situations. Or DTG make it clear that they will help people requesting help regardless of whether they are Third Party or not. Example of issue I can't resolve but not getting any help from DTG - When I cook and Pak my custom root in TSW 6 Editor and in game try loading into that route I am unable to and instead just end up seeing the Front End Level skybox with Menu Music still playing. I can not understand what wrong or how to fix. Asked multiple times to DTG for help and getting 0 help back from them. DTG Matt Sorry to tag you in this but I feel your the person who would in this situation feel the same if you were in our shoes the community. Also apologise it seems like I've been a keyboard worrier above but theres not really any way to feedback to DTG as its very selective on what DTG respond to.
Also I just want to outline something I'm noticing with DTG, they are pushing updates for main game but at no point are we getting editor fixes being coupled with these game updates being pushed. I get it's a lot of work but the more the game updates the more out of sync it becomes with the editor and the more bugs that appear. surly it's possible between now and this update the public editor update with fixes and tested even if it's unpaid people volunteering to test it. It would allow updates to flow for the editor rather then being left behind.
I think that there is enough evidence to prove that, with the Editor, DTG have bitten of more than they can chew. Both the Editor and Formation Designer have, effectively, become Abandonware. (In the case of Formation Designer it was more or less abandoned on Day 1). I doubt if this was deliberate and I wonder if DTG, for whatever reason, don't now have the people who actually could write a Full Manual for the PC Editor. They certainly don't seem willing to invest pound notes in the project. A shame really because I genuinely believe that the game would be in a better state had they invested more in these areas. Just pinching the top community projects each year to mask this is not, in my opinion, a sensible long term strategy.
What I don't get, and has never been answered when I've asked, is why the editor that was released is seemingly so much less usable than the one DTG uses internally, when it seemed like we were going to be given the same one. Matt was very clear upfront that the editor is a professional tool with a steep learning curve and little to no documentation, and that's fine, but the one we got didn't even have cooking capability. The reason for the differences, and what we were actually meant to do with this, remains a mystery. (My admiration for those who have nonetheless powered their way into proficiency with this thing remains very strong.)
The reason given was that we shouldn't have access to the game's source files. The internal editor is designed to work with source files while the public editor was modified to use the cooked files from the final game instead. I think this makes the existence of the separate public editor incredibly dumb because we can access and export anything we want anyway.
so tbf the editor differences would be if you had the in house one there is a potential if you got your hands on it you may have ability to build your own version of the game as you would have the source files along with the inhouse editor. The public one we have is a compiled version as it were where we don't have the engine source code or the cpp code of the classes that DTG have added so if you tried to build your own version of the game it prob won't work and would crash so technically it's DTG protecting their property / epics property. The bit for me I don't agree with is in my initial post in that DTG have shown clearly they can't handle the editor, the main game and prob the other stuff on their plate which is why I suggest a DTG editor team, various poeple happy to be in a unpaid position where they can spend some of their time doing the stuff DTG don't have the resources for. I doubt DTG would ever adopt this idea but who knows.
One thing I will say is I will give DTG another chance on helping us using the Editor by pushing stuff through their Support path and see what happens see if I get better help or not.
Thanks for the info! Could anyone point me to where the explanation was given, please? I'm pretty sure it's been stated that the in-house editor is a modified version of the original, as their version of Unreal Engine itself is heavily modified from the original. So it sounds like that involved introducing proprietary code into their own editor to make it work for them. Makes sense then that they can't release that as-is to the community. So the version we got was modified further with the intent of removing the bits we can't have and making it work with the pre-cooked game assets instead? And then the intent was to allow us to in effect access and use the game assets as Lego blocks to build our own routes and stock? And cooking was removed because the parts we're using are already cooked? Then does that mean cooking isn't necessary at all once we've assembled our route from these pre-cooked assets; we can just save it somehow? That all seems off somehow, if nothing else because people have gone to a great deal of trouble to create with this, including adding their own models and modding this editor to be able to cook, while the above sounds like creating with this editor should be much easier than all that. I feel like I'm still missing a lot.
So techincally cooking was never removed. DTG have on numberous occasions broke cooking and taken quite a long time to fix, that latest issue is they added something into one of the asset which means when the cooking process trys to do what ever it needs to with that particular asset the cooking process will crash. Also, for stuff to work in game you have to cook and pak it as thats how they've built up the game which is stuff is contained within a pak and that paks are mounted and unmounted depending on whats needed for the given route the player has chosen. When it comes to why we can't have in house editor is due to most likley as I already said, their in house would have the ability to run most likly without needing to go through the Epic launcher and most likley could do a lot more then public one which DTG wouldn't be allowed to allow. The only alternative they were able to go with is the public one which we have were it has the classes which in house one has and it loads the paks. Obvs their in house one don't need that but it prob has the ability as well I would guess.
