Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere. (Soft Launched on Feb 20th)

How well does the upgrade process actually work? I've heard mention a few times that it screwed things up and the project had to be restarted. I'd be pretty upset if it was me..

I don't recommend starting a project in 2.2 and then trying to upgrade it to 3.0. It didn't work well for me. My textbook files ported over fairly well, as they were small projects. I could fix the minor issues. But for my big game project, it was a disaster. The project is now stalled because I don't know how to fix the numerous issues. It seems that I might have to start over from scratch. 

You're not the first person I've heard mention issues with conversion. I decided to put off further development of my RPG for fear that it would be ruined when I tried to upgrade to 3.0. Even if I backed up my files, that would still mean I would have to finish development in 2.2 instead of 3.0. Not that it's a bad thing, just that I'm really excited for the overhaul in 3.0 and would rather just wait instead of being mostly complete by the time 3.0 is released and then realizing I have to either forget about 3.0 for that game or start over from scratch. At last at this point if I had to restart for 3.0 it wouldn't be such a letdown.

I think that most people that have issues don't have major issues that can't be fixed- with my games, there were some problems (6, if I recall, a couple of them really important and frustrating but still solvable), but I managed to fix all of them. The problem is that it's really annoying because your code is good, but for some reason it doesn't work. I'd expect you to be able to eventually fix all of your problems passing over from 2.2 to 3.0, but it might take you some frustrating work to do so.

Half way through January. How are things looking for a 3.0 release by the end of the month?

I don't want to hold myself to certain dates, but I decided earlier this month to go ahead with a release because a major, third party issue I was waiting on won't be completely resolved in a timely manner. I'm not happy letting that problem through, but I think waiting any longer will harm more than help. Anybody working on Flash and Desktop won't even experience the issue at all.

A release won't happen immediately because I have to do the proper preparations. I foresaw this scenario months ago, and I've in fact been working since December on a top to bottom redesign of Stencyl.com to coincide with the 3.0 release and signal a fresh, new start for us. That is mostly done, and I'm quite happy with the final product. Stencylpedia also needs updates to bring it into consistency with 3.0. Once those are done, we can release and move on from this.

Good to hear Jon! What exactly is the issue that non flash/desktop games will have?

So if I understand it right, when v3 is going to be released there will be still some small bugs? If so that's okay with me. If I can continue publish to flash then that is not a problem at all. But that means also you are going to release fixes over time?

So if I understand it right, when v3 is going to be released there will be still some small bugs? If so that's okay with me. If I can continue publish to flash then that is not a problem at all. But that means also you are going to release fixes over time?

We will press hard to get the specific issue resolved, and regular users will be able to tap partially into our continuous release system to enjoy regular updates.

Paid customers for the past 18 months or so have been able to get a live drop every time code is checked in. We won't offer that to free users, but we will pick a reasonable timeframe (like weekly or bimonthly) to drop a new release for the public.

I'm pumped to hear that 3.0 will still be released very soon. It's unfortunate that we had such a hang up because of a third party, but it's completely understandable to want to have a solid product on launch day. For people not reading the forums of paying attention to 3.0 release will probably find the bug and wonder what's going on or be irritated. I feel your decision to push our a release in spite of the issue is justified, however.

We thank you for your countless hours of work and stress to bring us this excellent development tool!

Good to hear Jon! What exactly is the issue that non flash/desktop games will have?

Mobile sound playback.

Only this reason, i am still working with Old NME version & already published game
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,27886.0.html

Jon, Accidentally i post this thread in Flash/Desktop section. Would u transfer this thread to Mobile section please.

Good to hear Jon! What exactly is the issue that non flash/desktop games will have?

Mobile sound playback.

I am so sorry to read that, but as a Product Manager I totally agree with you Jon. You should launch the product (and get rid of this awful translation project, thats totally useless at this stage. You need a updated documention first, then a translated documentation referencing the latest product version and THEN you can translate Stencyl.)

I'd beg to differ on the translation foray. It was actually really effective, so much so that it was straining the server when under moderate load. I took it down because I didn't have the time to optimize it. In no instance was the translation effort sapping my time (besides the week or two it took to make the web app, peanuts in the scope of 3.0's timeline) - it was 100% crowdsourced.

Although what you say is reasonable on the surface, it's really implausible that we'd see translated documentation for anything more than a few languages at the scale this documentation is at. At best, and even this has hardly been done, we'd see translations of the crash course.

For certain audiences like Chinese, having a translated app is the difference between adoption and not, and I've been told this pretty explicitly by such audiences, some who have approached me about it because they are serious about spreading Stencyl in their respective countries (and have the credentials to back that claim up). Such audiences tend to self-develop their own resources to meet their needs, rather than waiting out for translated documentation.

The official release of 3.0 will be cool but won't affect me much since I have 3.0 now and it's great as it is. I'm just excited for the website redesign.

Kickstart this thing to add a lot of much needed features. Spriter did it. Spine's done it multiple times.

When is Stencyl 3.0 going to release?

Q1 2014

@TTP - Behind the scenes, I've been planning out how we want to proceed, and I assure you that the development will be targeted precisely towards the things that matter to users like you. I'll let you have a look and contribute to those discussions. I appreciate the multiple calls for Kickstarter... unfortunately, $100k can barely cover a junior engineer around here (not kidding!). I've e-mailed you privately to point out what to do next.