Hello everyone!
I noticed that many people have began game projects using the beta version of blender. From your experience, would it be safe enough to use it on a project? or is it still pretty risky?
Also, what are the obvious advantages that would make you take the risk? Faster game rendering or anything like that?
Advantages:
Dynamic Loading
New sound system
External targets for bone constraints
Keyboard and mouse python objects
And more
Disadvantages:
You may find a feature missing or perhaps on odd bug.
Too be honest, I have been using 2.5 for game development since 2.52. At first there where a few problems, but at this point I can’t imagine going back to 2.49.
advatages, faster game engine, nicer gui, search function, addons, cleaner python layout, improved f-curve and action/nla editor
It’s definitely better
Thanks a lot everyone for your replies! Blender 2.5 it is! 
There’s a bug where sometimes Blender 2.5x arbitrarily calls in a terrorism tip on your house and the government arrests you and you have to jump a burning motorcycle over a billboard to get away, so yeah, I’d say it’s dangerous.
…but seriously, there are gonna be glitches and crashes, and every time they release a new beta the API and GUI are changed so you’d have to fix up scripts and stuff, but I’d say it’s well worth it, since the general usability and understandability have been improved and streamlined vastly. Personally I wouldn’t go back to 2.4x even if I had to jump a burning motorcycle.
Yeah, I got that bug. Nearly as bad as doing the script conversion was 
Advantages:
Dynamic Loading (broken but won’t be forever)
New sound system
External targets for bone constraints
Keyboard and mouse python objects
Faster Game Engine
Uses Python 3
Game Render GUI mode hides (most) options that are not relevant to game engine
Capsule physics shape, great for simple character bounders or building complex shapes
2.49b is static; all new features and improvements will be in 2.5 and its descendants
Disadvantages:
Features changes, disappear and reappear though this is slowing down
Bevel tool now sucks
Fewer community scripts to reference
Still unstable, usable but except occasional crashes
The risks aren’t major, just a bit of frustration really. Sticking with 2.49b means your on solid ground but I think for any serious game development you will eventually want 2.5 or a derivative.
Hi
The bad thing is the B2.5+ is beta.
The good thing is the 2.49b is static.
Just make your choose.
I’ll stick on B2.49b until the B2.5+ or 2.6 is official.
What makes this choice hard is that if you stick with 2.49 on a major project, it would be extremely difficult to convert it to a 2.5x file, because it would cause glitches, so I wouldn’t be able to use the new features.
Thanks everyone for your replies!
Definitely go with 2.5!
Not so many crashes happens, and it always saves in .blend1 (2) (3), so you’ll fin your wrok. Save often, and i’ll recive your payback for the risk, 2.5 is far better
@An Ca: dynamic loading broken… Where did you read this? I just have to test it a bit, so if it’s broken i don’t even start…
Well there is the memory leak described here, http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=205346, which for me will actually totally crash Blender if you load and free the library several times.
Also lights loaded from libraries don’t seem to work in GLSL mode. And attempting to load certain libraries results in crashes that I cannot explain, I am thinking it may be the memory leak. Basically library loading is very unstable and unpredictable.
There’s a bug where sometimes Blender 2.5x arbitrarily calls in a terrorism tip on your house and the government arrests you and you have to jump a burning motorcycle over a billboard to get away, so yeah, I’d say it’s dangerous.
Yeah I had this bug once. I just pulled out my blender ray gun and zapped 'em
but yeah, I would definately go for Blender 2.5x I use and I have had few problems
[QUOTE=Dhaher;1764884]
What makes this choice hard is that if you stick with 2.49 on a major project, it would be extremely difficult to convert it to a 2.5x file, because it would cause glitches, so I wouldn’t be able to use the new features.
QUOTE]
Actually it’s not that hard to do that. I’ve been working on a game from 2.4something (can’t remember) and switched to 2.5 when it was still in alpha stage. It’s just a little time consuming to change scripts to fit the new api, but everything still worked the same.
Sadly I don’t have a blender ray gun 
@nemitis-Thanks for the info. I expected bound glitches or other glitches of that sort.
Yea, i’ve tried today and reported the bug.
Hope dl will come back soon.