18 replies to this topic

[SJ MetalDeath]

so will mwo move the new cry engine ?

should it ?

[dario03]

They haven't told us yet. They said they want to do a engine upgrade and the newest Cry engine was of course a option but so was a totally different engine since it would require about as much work. UE4 is the other engine that gets brought up the most here but afaik nothing official has been said. Theres a town hall in a couple of days, maybe something will be mentioned there but I would be surprised since hasn't been long since they said they were looking at options.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Worth it for the sake of gameplay and eyecandy performance? Absolutely.

Worth it monetarily? Debatable, its a huge undertaking for PGI to port MWo over.

[Gas Guzzler]

Mister D, on 29 March 2016 - 01:11 PM, said:

Worth it for the sake of gameplay and eyecandy performance? Absolutely.

Worth it monetarily? Debatable, its a huge undertaking for PGI to port MWo over.

If they sold more mechs they would have the money to keep them going. Lol. I admit to not understanding how an engine upgrade would work, but it would be relatively light on the art and modeling departments right?

[NoiseCrypt]

Gas Guzzler, on 29 March 2016 - 01:20 PM, said:

If they sold more mechs they would have the money to keep them going. Lol. I admit to not understanding how an engine upgrade would work, but it would be relatively light on the art and modeling departments right?

In theory the APIs make it possible to map functionality directly from one game engine to another. And all the game "resources" (models, textures, animations, etc...) can either be imported directly, or converted and imported via automation.
But like everything else software related, its a horrible mess in reality, and things will go horrible wrong, even though every precaution is taken

[Darth Hotz]

Bring new game modes that are fun.
Fix CW and bring value to the planets, so it makes any sense to fight over them.
Work on savable dropdecks for CW.
Get a campaign mode working.
Bring more stuff like tanks and infantry to the battlefield.

Then PGI can start about focusing their limited resources towards a new engine, but only if the run the game parallel on the old one for some time. Otherwise I foresee a bug desaster.

[Zordicron]

They need to go to the new engine. Reading between the lines on Russ' comments, it is plain to see certain game mechanics and systems and even UI elements are basically lostech on their current, beta phase unsupported version of cryengine.

The biggest reason to upgrade, is to be able to actually get support from the people that made the engine. Right now they are on an unsupported mess of a beta release cry engine version that they have heavily modified to work.

Want better mechlab save times? We need a new engine.
Want switchable LBX ammo? New engine.
Want different weapons, with different functionality? New engine.

The list goes on, because really even if those things are possible right now they would require fiddle-f'ing around with the weird one off custom engine code, possible total re-writes, and when all is said and done if there is some wonky bug they have no one to call for advice or support besides the guy across the cubicle.


The engine isn;t just "for more pretty grphicx guyz!" its like putting down a new cornerstone to build everything from, yes graphics, but also UI, netcode changes, etc etc. If they want to untie the engineers hands, they need to upgrade the engine first.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Sounds like they got themselves into this mess right from the word jump, eh? Lovely.

[m]

Made a similar thread less than a week ago.

Just putting a link to it here: http://mwomercs.com/...onvert-the-game

[Chimera_]

Russ acknowledged that for the game to exist for another 5 years (their goal, apparently) they will have to update the engine, and he's made it very much sound like something that will be happening this year. We should be getting more info soon, hopefully this Friday in the Town Hall.

I won't pretend to know much about the specifics of an engine upgrade and what benefits would come from it, but I do know the current engine is outdated and a bit of a Frankenstein's Monster.

[Ghogiel]

Gas Guzzler, on 29 March 2016 - 01:20 PM, said:

but it would be relatively light on the art and modeling departments right?

Not entirely. For about a couple years now CE has moved to a different shader model, it's PBR instead of the old legacy from last gen, what MWO uses. The way materials are set up through textures is a little different. The diffuse textures will basically be gone and be replaced with an albedo map, in addition with a metalness map. the spec/gloss maps will probably need value changes as well.
They probably won't need to be baking anything off the high poly and just need to spend some time in the PS docs. DE from warframe spent ages writing an PS script to do it for them, but even after a year I don't think it ever worked right as of yet and they have just been slowly updating the old assets I assume a lot by hand.

[Troutmonkey]

SJ MetalDeath, on 29 March 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

so will mwo move the new cry engine ?

should it ?

Should MWO move to a new engine?
Yes

Should that engine be CryEngine 5?
Probably not

[Green Mamba]

They will get to it right after they put Knockdowns back in ...How many years it been since they said that.Somethings are beyond certain peoples ability.

[LordNothing]

Troutmonkey, on 29 March 2016 - 04:29 PM, said:

Should MWO move to a new engine?
Yes

Should that engine be CryEngine 5?
Probably not

depends on what the migration tools look like, if they are really good id stay with cryengine. they are going to be non existent moving from one engine to another. the engine likely has a lot of reverse compatibility built in. while some of the features pgi currently uses may have been deprecated they are still there and available as a stop gap until a new system may be employed. then you have the problem that much of the staff has grown accustom to working with cryengine, some members of the staff may have to take a crash course in the new engine.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Redoing the netcode is going to be a hurdle, and frankly in a FPS the most important one.

[m]

Green Mamba, on 29 March 2016 - 04:35 PM, said:

They will get to it right after they put Knockdowns back in ...How many years it been since they said that.Somethings are beyond certain peoples ability.

Weapon Recoil would be point in that direction.

[Troutmonkey]

LordNothing, on 29 March 2016 - 06:09 PM, said:

depends on what the migration tools look like, if they are really good id stay with cryengine. they are going to be non existent moving from one engine to another. the engine likely has a lot of reverse compatibility built in. while some of the features pgi currently uses may have been deprecated they are still there and available as a stop gap until a new system may be employed. then you have the problem that much of the staff has grown accustom to working with cryengine, some members of the staff may have to take a crash course in the new engine.

From the comments I've seen about from Russ and others, the migration from CE3 to CE5 will basically require the entire game to be rewritten - meaning that porting it to any other engine will be about the same amount of work

[Volthorne]

Troutmonkey, on 29 March 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

From the comments I've seen about from Russ and others, the migration from CE3 to CE5 will basically require the entire game to be rewritten - meaning that porting it to any other engine will be about the same amount of work

It would be more work to port to CryENGINE 5, actually. Mostly because it doesn't exist at this point, so you'd have to build it first before even thinking of being able to port something over to it.

Edited by Volthorne, 29 March 2016 - 07:29 PM.

[NoiseCrypt]

Afuldan McKronik, on 29 March 2016 - 02:53 PM, said:

Sounds like they got themselves into this mess right from the word jump, eh? Lovely.

At the time, the competing engines, mainly Unreal Engine 3, couldn't do 12v12. Which most people just take for granted now.
Attention and support wise, it was also an advantage being on a new engine as one of the biggest projects, apart from Crysis.
Both points freely interpreted from the first two Town Halls. Which are available on youtube.

Edited by NoiseCrypt, 30 March 2016 - 12:59 PM.