183 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Signal27, on 27 February 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

Not to drift too far off topic, but that would give me confidence about PGI's financial health. A development team thinking about investing the money, time, and effort towards changing engines does not sound like a game that's about to go broke - in spite of what many forum posters have been predicting for the last 3 years.

well that's the other part of it. While Russ was discussing this he stated that they're looking at the best option to be able to keep MWO "relevant" (not his word, can't remember exact wordage used) for 5+ years so it looks like PGI is investing in long-term options for the game

[Cappy]

From the perspective of a customer totally ignorant of software development:

it would be nice if they actually finished some of their features before undertaking a huge project like porting their half finished game to a new engine. If the engine was incapable of supporting the features they wanted to add, then why did they sell their project on said features five years ago? Did they not research the limitations? What was and wasn't possible? If they did, why were they not forthcoming with that information?

I suppose, in the end, it's a nice thought. An engine change wouldn't be totally unwelcome in my opinion. But it does frustrate me that this game seems more or less exactly the same as it was in closed beta. A contextless arena shooter with a ton of un-utilized potential, will a change of engine increase the chances of feature expansion and development?

Edited by Cappy, 27 February 2016 - 05:41 PM.

[Sandpit]

Cappy, on 27 February 2016 - 05:37 PM, said:

From the perspective of a customer totally ignorant of software development:

it would be nice if they actually finished some of their features before undertaking a huge project like porting their half finished game to a new engine. If the engine was incapable of supporting the features they wanted to add, then why did they sell their project on said features five years ago? Did they not research the limitations? What was and wasn't possible? If they did, why were they not forthcoming with that information?

That goes back to the whole "vision" philosophy. PGI's "vision" for MWO has changed more times than the number of years it's been out. Couple that with glacial dev speeds and severe lack of helping cultivate the community here on their own forums and you get where we're at now unfortunately

[Wintersdark]

Cappy, on 27 February 2016 - 05:37 PM, said:

From the perspective of a customer totally ignorant of software development:

it would be nice if they actually finished some of their features before undertaking a huge project like porting their half finished game to a new engine. If the engine was incapable of supporting the features they wanted to add, then why did they sell their project on said features five years ago? Did they not research the limitations? What was and wasn't possible? If they did, why were they not forthcoming with that information?

I suppose, in the end, it's a nice thought. An engine change wouldn't be totally unwelcome in my opinion. But it does frustrate me that this game seems more or less exactly the same as it was in closed beta. A contextless arena shooter with a ton of un-utilized potential, will a change of engine increase the chances of feature expansion and development?

PGI has been famously bad for this.

In fact, if I could only make one complaint about PGI, this would be it.

Many other things they've improved with, but this one they're exactly as they've always been:

PGI loves to announce a new project, work hard on it for a while, then simply forget about it. In fact, I'm actually surprised to see the CW development results next month.

We've seen this play out a LOT of times over the years. Aggressive balance passes? Hitbox corrections? They start these projects where they promise to keep working on a topic one patch at a time iteratively, do one or two passes, then just stop. The Academy? It's awesome. They talked about a lot of extra stuff they wanted to add.... but after doing the Steam launch, it's been largely forgotten too. The list is very, very long.

Now, I understand that limited developer time and numbers means they can only actively pursue so many things at one time, but these projects that get started and abandoned, it gets frustrating. They never really discuss it, either, the project is just never mentioned again.

I'd be fine if (admittedly, like CW here) they would keep coming back to them every couple months, or at least keep a list of current projects that are suspended/being worked on/slated for future action when time permits; just so you know if it's ever(* in the relatively near future) going to see some love again or if it's just done and gone.

Ah well. That's my real pet peeve, moreso than anything else, and always has been.

[LordNothing]

when you have a game that has years of staying power from the way that f2p works, one has to consider long consequence of major engine updates. we might be coming into the age where games keep up to date with their engines, and push for major engine updates every 4-6 months. mwo certainly is not alone in the number of games seeking an engine update, i know ksp is almost about done with their engine update, and im sure there are others.

so yea this game is kind of a sinking boat right now, the community has pgi plugging leaks when the whole thing needs to be dragged to drydock and refit. its going to suck, its going to take time. but its that or all the cash you stuffed into the hold is going down with the ship.

[TLBFestus]

Wintersdark, on 26 February 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

Some of the biggest news we've had in ages. This and the potential death of Ghost heat.

This town hall seemed to be pretty average at first, then REALLY took off.

Don't count your mech-eggs before they hatch. We've been down this road before only to be disappointed or underwhelmed.

With luck, probably a lot of it, we will see an improved game. My biggest concern is that this new stuff if coming from the same brain trust as before.

[Wintersdark]

TLBFestus, on 28 February 2016 - 12:09 AM, said:

Don't count your mech-eggs before they hatch. We've been down this road before only to be disappointed or underwhelmed.

With luck, probably a lot of it, we will see an improved game. My biggest concern is that this new stuff if coming from the same brain trust as before.

See my post just above this.

I'm quite aware of the track record.

Still, I have hope. I always do: If I didn't, I wouldn't be playing, and wouldn't be here. That doesn't mean I'm blind to the realities

[Cappy]

LordNothing, on 27 February 2016 - 11:36 PM, said:

when you have a game that has years of staying power from the way that f2p works, one has to consider long consequence of major engine updates. we might be coming into the age where games keep up to date with their engines, and push for major engine updates every 4-6 months. mwo certainly is not alone in the number of games seeking an engine update, i know ksp is almost about done with their engine update, and im sure there are others.

so yea this game is kind of a sinking boat right now, the community has pgi plugging leaks when the whole thing needs to be dragged to drydock and refit. its going to suck, its going to take time. but its that or all the cash you stuffed into the hold is going down with the ship.

All Points Bulletin as well. Which has a much smaller community than MWO.

Edited by Cappy, 28 February 2016 - 12:37 AM.

[Navid A1]

If PGI can find a workaround to do multi viewport rendering ( picture in picture) in Cryengine (which uses deferred lighting) , then by all means... i'll be happy if they use the latest version.

[Choppah]

Another small dev team is porting their game to a new engine, from Source to UE4. Granted Insurgency is a FPS and is moving to an engine who's primary focus will likely be FPS and shooters in general.

Just looking at how long this list of just UE3 games is compared to all CryEngine games, I think a move to UE4 will be PGI's best bet. It may not have all that they hope for, but UE4 has lots of small dev teams flocking to it. Whereas CryTek has been in financial trouble due in no small part to its engine's difficulty of use, resource intensiveness, and poor support.

Giant caveat. No engine will fix bad decisions and bandaids on top of bandaids.

[Gyrok]

Choppah, on 28 February 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

Another small dev team is porting their game to a new engine, from Source to UE4. Granted Insurgency is a FPS and is moving to an engine who's primary focus will likely be FPS and shooters in general.

Just looking at how long this list of just UE3 games is compared to all CryEngine games, I think a move to UE4 will be PGI's best bet. It may not have all that they hope for, but UE4 has lots of small dev teams flocking to it. Whereas CryTek has been in financial trouble due in no small part to its engine's difficulty of use, resource intensiveness, and poor support.

Giant caveat. No engine will fix bad decisions and bandaids on top of bandaids.

Considering UE3 is now 15 years old, and CryEngine has only been commercially available for the last 8 or so years...those lists would be quite misleading.

What you do not see is that Star Citizen, and many other new games that are *HUGE* are using CryEngine.

EDIT: Full Disclosure, I design games...UE4 is *not* a good engine for a game like this...

Edited by Gyrok, 28 February 2016 - 12:29 PM.

[Goose]

Aren't all the big, splashie faceplants of the last two years also on Unreal Engine?

[Choppah]

Gyrok, on 28 February 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

Considering UE3 is now 15 years old, and CryEngine has only been commercially available for the last 8 or so years...those lists would be quite misleading.

The first released UE3 game was Roboblitz in 2006, Far Cry on CE1 came out in 2004. Those two lists are a comparison of a single game engine versus three. Despite the two year head start CE 1-3 gets, UE3 by itself has had way more games on it by a landslide.

Quote

What you do not see is that Star Citizen, and many other new games that are *HUGE* are using CryEngine.

EDIT: Full Disclosure, I design games...UE4 is *not* a good engine for a game like this...

Methinks your expectations are too high for PGI and MWO. Just because a engine allows for more expansive and complex game mechanics, doesn't mean PGI can actually utilize the engine to its full potential. The most I expect from this port would be MWO as it is now except that it works correctly. What an engine can do is secondary to how this dev team will actually use it.

[Summon3r]

giddy up get this thing on a new engine, hell go and get the war thunder engine so we can feel like we are on a real battle field

[Gyrok]

Choppah, on 28 February 2016 - 01:08 PM, said:

The first released UE3 game was Roboblitz in 2006, Far Cry on CE1 came out in 2004. Those two lists are a comparison of a single game engine versus three. Despite the two year head start CE 1-3 gets, UE3 by itself has had way more games on it by a landslide.

Methinks your expectations are too high for PGI and MWO. Just because a engine allows for more expansive and complex game mechanics, doesn't mean PGI can actually utilize the engine to its full potential. The most I expect from this port would be MWO as it is now except that it works correctly. What an engine can do is secondary to how this dev team will actually use it.

Actually...no...UE3 was around in 2004...had supplied screenshots, and was the basis for Unreal Tournament 2004 as the showcase for the engine.

CE1 != CE3.

The first game on CE3 was Crysis 2...the engine was not commercially available until after that point.

I do this for a living, I would know.

72 titles counting those currently in development for CE

The other point you are forgetting, is that UE3 was built to aim for consoles...CE was not. Those 72 titles are all PC games and are meant to be PC games. More than half the UE3 games on PC were terribad ports from consoles, or did not show up on PC at all.

Edited by Gyrok, 28 February 2016 - 02:18 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

UT2004 is running on UE2.5, though the first stable release of UE3 came out at roughly the same time as UT2004.

[Luminis]

Choppah, on 28 February 2016 - 01:08 PM, said:

Despite the two year head start CE 1-3 gets, UE3 by itself has had way more games on it by a landslide.

Popularity is no appropriate measurement of quality, though.

[Gyrok]

Yeonne Greene, on 28 February 2016 - 02:19 PM, said:

UT2004 is running on UE2.5, though the first stable release of UE3 came out at roughly the same time as UT2004.

I thought UT2004 was the tech showcase for UE3? Hmm...I guess I need to double check that...but yeah, it was definitely out in 2004.

Edited by Gyrok, 28 February 2016 - 02:50 PM.

[Choppah]

Gyrok, on 28 February 2016 - 02:12 PM, said:

Actually...no...UE3 was around in 2004...had supplied screenshots, and was the basis for Unreal Tournament 2004 as the showcase for the engine.

CE1 != CE3.

The first game on CE3 was Crysis 2...the engine was not commercially available until after that point.

I do this for a living, I would know.

72 titles counting those currently in development for CE

The other point you are forgetting, is that UE3 was built to aim for consoles...CE was not. Those 72 titles are all PC games and are meant to be PC games. More than half the UE3 games on PC were terribad ports from consoles, or did not show up on PC at all.

Dude... read. I am lumping CE 1,2, and 3 games into 1 bucket and comparing all of them to UE3 games. Clearly CE3 did not come out in 2004. There is no more point in reiterating this, so see below.

Luminis, on 28 February 2016 - 02:23 PM, said:

Popularity is no appropriate measurement of quality, though.

Correct. Though clearly UE has been successful for a large number and variety of games.

Is UE4 or any particular engine the best for MWO? Depends on what we are defining "best" as. IMO the best I hope for is an engine the devs can use effectively to release additional content even at the expense of some current mechanics. Example, say UE4 can't handle mech arm movement (animation load too great or whatever), only legs and torso. Would that be so terrible if we got more maps per year instead? I know others would feel differently, but I think players should view this topic as what would work for this dev team, with their peculiar track record, and not some other dev team, game, situation, etc.

[Gyrok]

Choppah, on 28 February 2016 - 03:18 PM, said:

Dude... read. I am lumping CE 1,2, and 3 games into 1 bucket and comparing all of them to UE3 games. Clearly CE3 did not come out in 2004. There is no more point in reiterating this, so see below.

Correct. Though clearly UE has been successful for a large number and variety of games.

Is UE4 or any particular engine the best for MWO? Depends on what we are defining "best" as. IMO the best I hope for is an engine the devs can use effectively to release additional content even at the expense of some current mechanics. Example, say UE4 can't handle mech arm movement (animation load too great or whatever), only legs and torso. Would that be so terrible if we got more maps per year instead? I know others would feel differently, but I think players should view this topic as what would work for this dev team, with their peculiar track record, and not some other dev team, game, situation, etc.

UE4 is a primarily console engine...which makes it typically a poor choice for PC games with more complex mechanics. It also means that consoles have set hardware, and PCs do not...which means UE4 would likely require additional optimization above and beyond what CryEngine would. I note that, specifically, because of the noted lack of optimization by the community at large.

If you want a poorer performing game, using a language the technical people on this development team have not been familiar with using for the last 4 years while developing the game...so be it. However...as someone with experience in the industry...I can safely say, in my professional opinion, I would not change from CE to anything else at this point, because all the tricks they have learned in working with CE would be lost, and development on a technical front would likely stall out for sometime while they figure out how to make the new engine work.