What do Cocos2d-x users care about the most?
Here are your choices:
0 voters
I think bug fix releases with documentation catching up before new releases.
could not cocos2d development been released like linux ubuntu distro release system? a 5 year Long-term support and a Short-term support every 6 months (for example), during this time just bugs fix and more documentation…
I knew I’d be voting on my own again here, that’s the narrow view I take when the day draws in and a catching up on sleep beckons, I’m not looking ahead of the latest problem that seems to have taken forever already. Doesn’t every voter comment anyways? I’m sure I’m facing the impossible, or expensive, but I had some time off for a bank holiday so I might still just be living on easy street 
Thanks for asking Jason, you’d make a great manager indulging us like this.
Well, I want to state that we really want to know what our users want. To do that we need to gather what they are telling us and then figure our what that means for the direction things are heading. I don’t have the power to change anything on my own. What I can do is speak for everyone here though as a collective.
I agree that documentation could be improved, but I think it would be better to allow the community edit and support documentation along with the developers. The developers should focus on the issues more than documentation, IMHO. They may have more knowledge, but they may not be actually using the engine enough to document it well if they’re mainly or only developing the engine itself.
Could we open up the wiki? Is it already open? Is there a better Wiki platform similar to the new Discourse platform used for the forums now. I’d hope to write blog posts on using 3.3+ features in the future, but my time would likely be better spent improving the “official” documentation Wiki.
I’ve recently found that I often find myself not finding a full example to fulfill my needs and have to read the wiki with example code, then look through associated tests, and finally often dive into the core engine code (and its reference docs). After which I could probably write up a simple test case example covering my issues, and eventually write some context around it in the Wiki?
I’d vote for continuing to improve the foundations for easier upgrades, greater backwards compatibility of code and project settings when moving to the next point release. Also as a more immediate need is continue to improve and consolidate the GUI system and its API since that’s one of the few areas that feels unfinished and sometimes a little buggy. I personally appreciate the feature advancements and am willing to go through the upgrade process for any projects not near release within the same major release (e.g. any 3.x release).
My 2c
Note: I wrote this yesterday but didn’t post, I have some of the same views as stevetranby it seems on things like making cocos2d-x easier to get use, easier upgrades and backwards compatibility.
Sorry for the long post… Rant on:
Documentation / Support / Sample Code / Tutorials
Seems everyone is saying this needs improving… it’s very obvious. When I started with Cocos2d-x the documentation was really the test sample code, being a 20 year developer I had the ability to go through that massive project and figure out what I needed, but not everyone has a 20 year programming background! I imagine out of 20 people who download cocos2d-x, 19 of them give up and move on after a few hours of hitting their head against the wall. I’ve know a number of young devs who I tried to convince to use Cocos2d-x who simply gave up, I can’t blame them.
Cocos2D-x needs to catch up with other systems like Unity3D and LibGDX, their documentation+samples+tutorial videos are very professional. In the case of Unity they employ countless staff to write professional documentations, support the forums, make sample projects, videos, etc. I know Cocos2d-x is not a “company” like Unity is or has the same funding, but you can see why Unity is so popular.
Install App - Getting Started
Related to scaring people away statement above, another big problem is the setup process. Look at Unity, (sorry, I’m going to refer to Unity a lot as it is No1 game dev system by far), you download the install app, install, run… there in front of you is a working game example (along with documentation, tutorial and video tutorial to match). Cocos2d-x needs an install app that people can just download, install, compile and run… along with the documentation, etc.
I know we’ve had a push for people to make tutorials and thing recently, the documentation is better than it used to be (there is some), but pales in comparison to professionally produced documentation+videos+tutorials you see on the Unity website, or even LibGDX’s.
No More Breaking Backward Compatibility
I’m not talking about v3 or the depreciated v2 lists (though it has been a pain to upgrade to). Here I am referring to my past experience with Cocos2d-x (I’ve been using since v1). It seemed nearly every point release would break my code, it could be a number of functions renamed or more likely a new class would replace another and require a total rewrite of pages of code. This has to stop.
We have to update to get the latest bug and crash fixes, update for new hardware support, etc. To update an old project to the latest version should be a simple case of loading in my project and hitting compile.
In my 14 year career as a MS Studio Visual C++ developer I can’t recall this happening once. Even today I can load up my old programs into MS Visual Studio and compile them with little consequence.
If you want to add a new class that duplicates some functionality or improves on speed of an old class, just keep the old one too; don’t break backward compatibility. Same with renaming functions, try not to, but if you do keep the old one too. The old classes can be marked in the docs as depreciated and have a comment to say “has been replaced by class XXXX instead”.
Cocos2d-x - What are Chukong’s Plans For the Future?
My big concern with Cocos2d-x is that it is disappearing from the game dev industry here in Canada & the US. Over the past two years Unity has become the defacto dev system. I no longer personally know any other indie devs using Cocos2d, there are only a few dev studios using it in Vancouver. Looking for jobs in the area, they are now nearly all looking for Unity developers. The same in San Francisco, I’m sure Chuckong realise this too.
Unity is very impressive, they support their product massively, their V5 looks amazing with more support for 2D. They tour the USA and Canada, they were here in Vancouver last month for SIGGRAPH and Indie Game Summit … they spend a lot of money on staff and at events like this. They spend a lot of money on developing the product, documentation, support, videos, etc, etc… it is no wonder they are now the No1 dev system. Even Unreal Engine are having to play catch-up.
Now I know Unity3D isn’t exactly free like Cocos2d-x and that they obviously fund the development+support+promotion teams with this cash. I’ve no idea how much Chuckong spend on Cocos2d-x, or how much revenue gets back (direct or indirect) to fund Cococs2d-x. I also realise a lot of work has gone into v3 and new tools, bit it all pales in comparison to Unity.
So, my question is, what are Chuckong’s plans for Cocos2D-x, will we see a push to make Cocos2d-x a serious 2D contender for Unity, or will it remain at its current level?
TLDR: I think Cocos2D-x could be as big as Unity
P.S.
Personally, I think Chuckong have a great product with Cocos2d-x that has potential to regain position as the number 1 2D game development system but it would take a lot of effort and a change from the current direction. I also think done right the cost of all of this would pay for itself, like Unity manage to, perhaps with some finding from a “Pro” subscription/license. To bring Cocos2d-x up to the standard of Unity it would need a team of full time employees here in USA/Canada as well as the current team in China (as Unity have). Develop Cococs2d-x further, develop the best documentation, tools, source code, plugins to cover all areas (like adverts, stores, etc), support staff (constantly online, making tutorials, online tutorial classes, promoting at events). I would even go as far as to dream a Pro license could fund things like the purchase of the brash monkey company and you could include tools like Spriter in the Cocos2D-x package.
… end of rant!
If you don’t want something free and you want to have your hand held go with Unity.
If you want something better go with Cocos2d-x, warts and all. Unity sucks.
Great answer… inspirational. Unity “sucks” then, Cocos2d-x has “warts”. Glad that’s cleared up.
Carry on paying for Unity if you like. It has warts you pay for…
You have little experience compared to myself and a lot of people who contribute to cocos2d-x.
Take your pick: Pay for something you have no stake/input or contribute and be free, man!
Read the post you replied to first. You will see I am trying to discus and ask questions on the topic of possible improvement of Cocos2d-x (as a complete dev system) to bring it up to par with the leading system, which happens to be Unity3D (in the USA and Canada, probably not Asia). If you need proof, go onto indeed.ca (or your local job website) and search for “cocos2d” and then “unity3d”. Here in Vancouver you’ll see just two jobs for Cocos2D devs, two years ago the results were very different numbers with the likes of Rovio, GREE and others with hit games using it. Simple fact is, even with current developments, Cocos2D (-x) isn’t doing well in Vancouver, Canada and the USA in the industry.
Experience? Over 20 years professional. Cocos2d-x since 2010. I like to think I know what I’m talking about. I know what I wrote will be the opposite of what other people think, I’d like to hear others opinions, I might even change my own, that is the point of discussion.
Unity/Unreal are not free and I hardly believe normal indie developers spend that money as start up.
But I do agree that migrating project to new release is always a pain. That’s simply because there is no correct documentation on migration. If something needed to be removed, Cocos2d-x team should give us a guide to migrate.
Keeping old/unused materials exist does not help much but just making project complex. We need a lightweight engine and not a monster project.
Back to topic, what Cocos2d-x users care about the most is “how to develop their apps effectively”. Providing better documentation is a way to improve that.
My own opinion on the topic : If users thinks we need more/better Documentation, it means the projects/code is not understandable enough.
Either because it s not organized as people expect, because it doesn’t build on users platform out of the box, or because the cocos doesn’t behave as user expect it to.
So more documentation might not be the solution to the “Not enough documentation” problem.
I personally think that cocos needs a lot of cleanup / reorganizing effort instead of “more stuff” that doesn’t work as user wants it to work.
Unity actually has a free version and you can release with the free version, it isn’t even as limited as you think (please look it up elsewhere).
I meet with 250+ Vancouver indie devs, nearly all are using Unity, none apart from me are using Cocos2d-x (some used to). Even the students at the game dev college are learning Unity, they even get deals on Pro licenses. Game industry jobs, games at all the shows, indie devs, dev companies, … 90%+ Unity.
The proof is out there.
Unity as a company are doing everything right.
Back on topic…
Please realise I’m not bashing Cocos2d, I love Cocos2d-x. I would actually like to see it re-gain its popularity in the industry, hence all this.
Why should we care about this when we are talking about users and improving Cocos2d-x?
It is going to be a lot harder to attract new users if Cocos2d-x isn’t used in the industry. Any semi-serious new developer is going to pick a system that is used in the industry, this was one of the main reasons for me choosing Cocos2d-x back in 2010, a good system to learn, potential to get a job at the end of it; Unfortunately this is not the case now, not in the USA/Canada/UK at least.
I believe it could be again, but we (or Chuckong) need to set some serious goals. To be the equivalent of the Unity system for 2D games, along with the sort of support Unity has.
Anyway, I will stop here. I have to work the rest of the week so probably won’t be annoying you for a while. Sorry if you all think I’m nuts or you think I’m talking crap, maybe I am…
I’m jumping in the discussion. Of course documentation is the #1 problem with the current release. But what would really make a difference, at least for me, is a tighter content pipeline. Further developing CocosStudio and bringing the OSX version on par with the Windows one would be a good starting point.
And to add to what has been said about the cocos2d-x is free while Unity costs money, please notice that you can work with the free version of Unity and then subscribe to the Pro version for just 4,500USD or 225USD/month (including iOS and Android Pro). If you’re serious about publishing a game, 225 USD to be able to put your game on the major stores out there is pretty much nothing. So yes, Unity is a good contender to cocos2d-x but since we all love cocos2d-x, I’d like to know what the future roadmap is.
Cheers!
I’d say better documentation and fix bugs / extend COCOSTUDIO!!
What I mean “free” also refers to whether you are free to break down any limitations.
Cocos2d-x are free, providing that you have enough programming skills. For Unity, most features are available. But you cannot strip the code for Android app, meaning that the file size is big. Unless you app is AAA game and file size is not concern, no one will try to download any mini game app with large package size.
btw, did anyone also evaluate another library such as HaxeFlixel or game development tools such as Stencyl? Quite a lot of indie developer works with them. For example, in Lundum Dare 30, there are quite a lot of entries created by HaxeFlixel. I rarely found a project created by Cocos2d-x
https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/?place=forum/haxeflixel&showsearch=true&showpopout=true&showtabs=true&parenturl=http%3A%2F%2Fhaxeflixel.com%2Fforum%2F#!topic/haxeflixel/B_QUHMi5dyM
I tried HaxeFlixel and it’s very nice to prototype with. And if you come from an AS/Flash background it’s very easy to get started with. The plus is that it’s already multiplatform. The cons are mainly the same as cocos2d-x… it lacks integrated tools to get your game assets together. On top of that it’s also kind of hard to add native features to your game if you need to, compared to cocos2d-x.