183 replies to this topic

[Luminis]

Lozruet Gravemind, on 27 February 2016 - 01:13 PM, said:

Im sure that Dice wouldnt mind giving them pointers on how Frostbite works

I'm under the impression that Frostbite is off the table. EA published games only, as far as I understand it.

That said, I don't know enough about the engines themselves to make an educated guess on which one is actually easiest to work with. I don't have any actual expertise in that field. Must be a lot of professional video game developers in here to know just how much easier UE4 is to work with than CE4

Edited by Luminis, 27 February 2016 - 01:20 PM.

[Sandpit]

Ghogiel, on 27 February 2016 - 01:09 PM, said:

Pfft. If a studio can't learn and can only go glacial speed with CE that's not good. Making it sound like CE is some voodoo arcane tech no one can work with at a speed modern studios require. If that were true, we probably aren't going to be going much faster. Ever. Nothing suggests another engine is going to be any quicker dev speed. That's pure specualation. Really on the market their only alternative that would be a potential upgrade is UE4.

yes because that's exactly what I said and implied. I never once, not ever implied the cryengine was "bad". You should really read before you post counters like this

I said, cryengine (in my opinion) was one of the main culprits behind the glacial dev speeds.
I said it's because they had very minimal training on a new engine they'd never used before and have no staff on hand that were considered anything but "new" when it came to developing and coding for this specific engine.
I said I knew we were in trouble with PGI developing on that engine when it took them a year to modify a UI

Let's leave the hyperbole and such at the door I'm simply pointing out that PGI and Cryengine were a bad combination. Nowhere did I or am I "blaming" cryengine for being a "bad" game engine.

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Cathy, on 27 February 2016 - 06:13 AM, said:

I'm kinda nervous about this, I mean its a very big project and well, three years to this state, just when PGI are finally developing the game at an acceptable rate, they want to change the Engine, then bug hunting, P.G.I's quality control isn't the best in the world.


don't let the door hit you on the way out

Part of a New engine would be the Dev community using the engine and the Engine developers itself. If they went to say Frostbite Im sure Dice wouldnt mind PGI calling them up every now and then asking questions. Same goes for going to Unreal 4. CryEngine as far as I can tell is a very sparesly used engine and Crytek is very low on support due to current financials. So moving to somthing easier to use and with more support could very likely only be a good thing.

[Lozruet Gravemind]

oldradagast, on 27 February 2016 - 06:14 AM, said:

Being involved in system-level software implementation, though in the realm of engineering tools, I find that part particularly interesting if accurate. Normally, going to a new tool is an order of magnitude more complicated than going to the next version of the tool you are using... but, again, that's in the realm of corporate level engineering tools. I wonder what the difference is here?

I dont know that much about CryEngine or some other engines but Id guess it depends on how different CryEngine 4 handles things and how different the tools for using it are. If they are significantly different to MWOs current engine, which is the 1st itteration of CryEngine if I remember, then it would be the same as going to an entirely different engine.

As much as Russ gets flak I HIGHLY doubt he would of said its just as easy to switch engines unless that was the actual case. Switching engines is no small thing to consider internally, let alone let nearly 1200 people know in a Stream that you know is going up on Youtube and then be talked about in your forums.

[pyrocomp]

DV McKenna, on 27 February 2016 - 01:10 PM, said:

The only reason to go Unreal, is to let them put the beta shield back up and continue to sell mechpacks with an excuse.

Might be a good idea to do so and to start some things over again, like implementing complex mech numerical model (just how heat works, how it generates and dissippates, how it gets to those heatsinks and what affects the process) to have balancing options other then ghost mechanics and quirks.

[sycocys]

Probably going to be the Quake 3 engine since they don't want to move past arena shooter anyhow. That just makes life simple as they've been using that engine for 15 years anyhow for all their prior games.

Edited by sycocys, 27 February 2016 - 01:42 PM.

[Ghogiel]

Sandpit, on 27 February 2016 - 01:23 PM, said:

yes because that's exactly what I said and implied. I never once, not ever implied the cryengine was "bad". You should really read before you post counters like this

I said, cryengine (in my opinion) was one of the main culprits behind the glacial dev speeds.
I said it's because they had very minimal training on a new engine they'd never used before and have no staff on hand that were considered anything but "new" when it came to developing and coding for this specific engine.
I said I knew we were in trouble with PGI developing on that engine when it took them a year to modify a UI

Let's leave the hyperbole and such at the door I'm simply pointing out that PGI and Cryengine were a bad combination. Nowhere did I or am I "blaming" cryengine for being a "bad" game engine.

You are blaming PGI as being incompetent and not the CE in that case.

[Ghogiel]

Tarogato, on 27 February 2016 - 01:14 PM, said:

I'm surprised so many people are saying this game runs on Cry Engine 2. ... lol, it does not. This is Cry Engine 3, folks.

With all the mentions of CE4, which doesn't even exist, why be surprised lol.

[pyrocomp]

Ghogiel, on 27 February 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

You are blaming PGI as being incompetent and not the CE in that case.

He is stating that PGI had very limited experience with CE. This is a little bit different, from what you are saying. And... frankly, this doesn't make them incompetent, just inexperienced with CE. IIRC, the even admitted it somwhere.

[Ghogiel]

pyrocomp, on 27 February 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

He is stating that PGI had very limited experience with CE. This is a little bit different, from what you are saying. And... frankly, this doesn't make them incompetent, just inexperienced with CE. IIRC, the even admitted it somwhere.

What I am saying is that CE isn't some inhouse engine with weird pipelines no one but the guy whose been with the studio 10 years knows how it works. CE is probably more user friendly than 90% of engines in exisitance. Is specially developed for other studios besides Crytek can work with it.

[Wintersdark]

Appogee, on 27 February 2016 - 08:51 AM, said:

I think it would be wise for PGI to move to an engine more in keeping with their coding capabilities.

If you're gonna post ASCII gaming, may as well do it in MWO!



I did this in a match first, but screwed it up and couldn't see anything, so the above I did in the testing grounds to avoid trolling my team again

Ghogiel, on 27 February 2016 - 01:48 PM, said:

With all the mentions of CE4, which doesn't even exist, why be surprised lol.

Didn't you listen to the Town Hall? Russ said in it that they're announcing or releasing Cry4 at the game developers conference this year. It's supposedly still somewhat hush hush.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Sandpit, on 26 February 2016 - 09:36 PM, said:

Russ says MWO could be moving to a completely new engine and hasn't decided between that or the cryengine update

Yes, PGI plans on hiring Cryengine devs to update the game engine to use DX12, which mean massive optimizations and modern features across the board.

Anyone who disagrees with PGI giving the code to someone who knows what they're doing and massively updating the game engine is an idiot.

[pyrocomp]

Ghogiel, on 27 February 2016 - 01:54 PM, said:

What I am saying is that CE isn't some inhouse engine with weird pipelines no one but the guy whose been with the studio 10 years knows how it works. CE is probably more user friendly than 90% of engines in exisitance. Is specially developed for other studios besides Crytek can work with it.

Well, engine might be user friendly but restrictive in the way it is used. Windows is user friendly. Now try to config out of it anything other than user machine. A good tool used inapropriately by mistake or simple financial decision that began to cost all to much. And niether you nor I had seen MWOs code to really know what and how was done, so ... The end reason behind all that might be simple *read it in proper voice* 'you require more programmers' sounding each time as they plan to fix this or that or add anything. There are physical limits on whta can be done in one man-hour.

Edited by pyrocomp, 27 February 2016 - 02:06 PM.

[Ghogiel]

Wintersdark, on 27 February 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

Didn't you listen to the Town Hall? Russ said in it that they're announcing or releasing Cry4 at the game developers conference this year. It's supposedly still somewhat hush hush.

No.

But CE4 is probably just cryteks way of being different/ get around the fact that amazon bought an infinite license to CE and gives it away free wit no royalties, licenseing or revenue sharing lol. https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/

[Signal27]

I wonder if a new engine would allow the devs to implement convergence?

[Rathverge]

Havent actually read a townhall/devblog since release. This was interesting though, actually makes pgi look ambitious and future thinking.

Loved the rent-a-dev fanyboy engine bickering too. Best joke 2016 'MWOs massive physics utilization NEEDS ce's physics module'

[Sandpit]

Lozruet Gravemind, on 27 February 2016 - 01:33 PM, said:

I dont know that much about CryEngine or some other engines but Id guess it depends on how different CryEngine 4 handles things and how different the tools for using it are. If they are significantly different to MWOs current engine, which is the 1st itteration of CryEngine if I remember, then it would be the same as going to an entirely different engine.

As much as Russ gets flak I HIGHLY doubt he would of said its just as easy to switch engines unless that was the actual case. Switching engines is no small thing to consider internally, let alone let nearly 1200 people know in a Stream that you know is going up on Youtube and then be talked about in your forums.

well here's the thing. PGI has openly admitted that cryengine was a bear for them to work with because they didn't have the expertise with it.

Converting to a new engine isn't a minor issue by any means, but if it means they would switch to an engine they're more comfortable with, have better support options with, and can convert it will increase the dev cycles exponentially. It's easier to come up with more efficient workflow processes, as well as adds a "comfort" level for experimenting.

It's not always about the "best", it's about the best for the dev team. We're in the process of converting our entire operating system at work, the old system is just that, old and a bit antiquated and not really all that efficient, but because it is a system I know efficiently, I've been able to come up with personal workflow processes that increase my productivity because I'm comfortable and knowledgeable with the processes.

The new system may be "better" and "more efficient', but our workflow and productivity will dip at the early stages while we, as workers, become more familiar and knowledgeable with the new system.

'It's the same principle here only in reverse. Cryengine was that new engine that, based on PGI's specs, ability to run the game on lower end systems, compatibility, etc. but the team had very little experience with it. So they're trying to figure out a new system while developing for a live game and then a commercially launched game. If they can move to another engine that they are more familiar with, it has potential to turnaround this glacial dev process we've had

[Sandpit]

80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie, on 27 February 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

Yes, PGI plans on hiring Cryengine devs to update the game engine to use DX12, which mean massive optimizations and modern features across the board.

Anyone who disagrees with PGI giving the code to someone who knows what they're doing and massively updating the game engine is an idiot.

agreed, I still honestly believe that this is the main reason dev speeds have been so slow throughout this game's development. They jumped in feet first with a new engine they had no experience with.

MWO was based on cryengine in large part because it was the best engine PGI could afford. It's been noted that a huge chunk of PGI's budget was initially dropped into cryengine because it was the best and greatest engine they could buy. It provided high end graphics capability, etc. but they didn't count on it being so difficult to learn I think

[Signal27]

Sandpit, on 27 February 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

agreed, I still honestly believe that this is the main reason dev speeds have been so slow throughout this game's development. They jumped in feet first with a new engine they had no experience with.

MWO was based on cryengine in large part because it was the best engine PGI could afford. It's been noted that a huge chunk of PGI's budget was initially dropped into cryengine because it was the best and greatest engine they could buy. It provided high end graphics capability, etc. but they didn't count on it being so difficult to learn I think

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.

[Gyrok]

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.

Considering the huge licensing cost that would stem for the upgrade to CE3.8.7 (CE4), they would likely be shilling out 1 million for the tech upgrade, then another1-2 million for the man hours to help convert it to the new engine in CE4.

So...yeah...not cheap either way.