Engine

[DerRidda]

You don't need any special engine to make an RPG, you design the game mechanics yourself with the engine's (scripting) language. You know how the Source engine is mainly used - and possibly mainly designed - for FPS games? Alien Swarm is also designed in the Source engine and that's top down perspective and absolutely no FPS. Also Unreal Engine... every kind of genre is done in that engine. Normally no fully fledged game engine limits what kind of game mechanics can be implemented.

[skuphundaku]

This is one more reason to hate Steam and all the fools that are begging to be Steam slaves.

Steam allow to public games with no DRM, but Steam still a DRM by itself.
Its just stupid law.

Yes, of course! That's why I get angry at people supporting Steam: they think that if the game within Steam has no DRM, then there's no DRM, but they overlook the fact that Steam itself is DRM, and a nasty one at that.

[geezer]

Even though it sort of screws us over in this case I love the fact that GPL v3 forbids DRM. Hearing that made me want to cheer. It sounds like there is more to this engine selection than I had first realized though. A multiplatform RPG engine, huh? Well, maybe inXile will consider it worth having to make all those extra tools. In a purist sort of way I like the idea of making my own engine, but in a reinventing the wheel sense it would be nice to avoid it.

[geezer]

This is one more reason to hate Steam and all the fools that are begging to be Steam slaves.

Steam allow to public games with no DRM, but Steam still a DRM by itself.
Its just stupid law.

Yes, of course! That's why I get angry at people supporting Steam: they think that if the game within Steam has no DRM, then there's no DRM, but they overlook the fact that Steam itself is DRM, and a nasty one at that.

+1. Got your back on that one. Steam sucks and it is intrusive DRM.

[SXX]

That is something that has worried me actually and you seem to be confirming my worst fears. If many of the engine libraries and tools are not useful for turn based RPG mechanics that could certainly make it much more difficult to find an engine. If they have to write all of their own code that would otherwise be in the engine do you think that is remotely realistic in a 12 month time frame?

I just think they will have not one of well-known engines.
Some of them is too expensive (unity and unreal engine) and some of them isn't have required functionality (all open source engines).

If Epic or Unity give them engine as a gift, they probably will use it.
With source code it is not problem to make linux port and its really will cost funny money.

Still, couldn't the engine still be useful for at least the rendering?

Its not real to create full toolset on something like OGRE or BGE in one and half year.

Surely drawing a scene can't be that different unless the turn based aspect would cause some problems.

I don't think so.

[Bryce777]

so besides these: http://unigine.com/products/unigine/ what do you think it's needed for W2?

Game need tons of tools to be made.
Unigine doesn't have lot of tools like UDK or Unity.
All these tools like speedtree, scaleform, face creating and animation, fast landscape edition.
This tools doesn't give benefits to RPG, but they make content creation much faster.
I don't sure Unigine have even 1/3 of all tools which available in UDK.

RPG game engine should have very powerful logic for quest/script/dialogues creating.
As well its should allow to modify lot of formulas.

My opinion goes under: I think Fargo license or get as gift some unknown game engine which created specially for RPG-like projects.
With game engine created for RPG (may be for new-style RPG) its will be much easy to get all required tools to work.
And probably its will be much cheaper than buying of something UDK.

The big problem is there is no such thing except a few amateur made things which a game has never been made with and are 2D like PARP and FIFE.

The other problem is your tools are very specific to what you do. So if you wanted to use FIFE for example then your tools are all geared towards making Fallout. But while fallout is great Wasteland 2 is a new game and won't necessarily be all that similar.

3D engine is just better in most respects because you can just swap art in and out and with physics you can make realistic destructible terrain and objects but it does take some work to make something that works like a turn based game. But I've done just that in C4 with no problems (listen to interview with jay barnson about the pain of doing it in torque for example) so feel it's a good choice. But no matter what engine you want you'll need more tools for stuff like dialog etc. but tools are generally easy to make just time consuming so having multiple programmers will make this easy.

[SXX]

Yes, of course! That's why I get angry at people supporting Steam: they think that if the game within Steam has no DRM, then there's no DRM, but they overlook the fact that Steam itself is DRM, and a nasty one at that.

Steam allow developer to public game without any protection
But Steam contain DRM options and that is forbid to public GPL games in Steam.

E.g Desura work mostly the same, but doesn't contain any DRM functions in client, its why Desura GPL completable.

[skuphundaku]

so besides these: http://unigine.com/products/unigine/ what do you think it's needed for W2?

Game need tons of tools to be made.
Unigine doesn't have lot of tools like UDK or Unity.
All these tools like speedtree, scaleform, face creating and animation, fast landscape edition.
This tools doesn't give benefits to RPG, but they make content creation much faster.
I don't sure Unigine have even 1/3 of all tools which available in UDK.

Well, that's right, but the most important thing to take into account is that an engine what supports Windows, Linux and MacOS is neede, so even if Unigine has more limited tools, it will still win over Unreal or Unity because those engines don't suport Linux. If there is some other engine that works on Windows, Linux and MacOS and has better tools than Unigine, then I hope we/inXile will find it.

RPG game engine should have very powerful logic for quest/script/dialogues creating.
As well its should allow to modify lot of formulas.

My opinion goes under: I think Fargo license or get as gift some unknown game engine which created specially for RPG-like projects.
With game engine created for RPG (may be for new-style RPG) its will be much easy to get all required tools to work.
And probably its will be much cheaper than buying of something UDK.

Well, there's Obsidian's Onyx Engine, which was used for DSIII. If BF is still in good relations with the people at Obsidian, then that may be an option. However, they would still need to port it to Linux and MacOS, because I doubt that it has support for these OSes.

[SXX]

You don't need any special engine to make an RPG, you design the game mechanics yourself with the engine's (scripting) language.

But create game on engine which designed for RPG will be easier than use some-engine-for-everything.

You know how the Source engine is mainly used - and possibly mainly designed - for FPS games? Alien Swarm is also designed in the Source engine and that's top down perspective and absolutely no FPS. Also Unreal Engine... every kind of genre is done in that engine. Normally no fully fledged game engine limits what kind of game mechanics can be implemented.

Does old-school RPG made on this engines? With tons of text and difficult structure of quest with are have lots of dependencies? Like Fallout.

Check CDProjectRED videos and interview why they create own engine.
Yes, you can done everything with every Engine, but its take more time that porting Windows-only RPG engine.

[SXX]

Well, that's right, but the most important thing to take into account is that an engine what supports Windows, Linux and MacOS is neede, so even if Unigine has more limited tools, it will still win over Unreal or Unity because those engines don't suport Linux. If there is some other engine that works on Windows, Linux and MacOS and has better tools than Unigine, then I hope we/inXile will find it.

Porting UE3 to linux its really easy job which are were did before (but not published).
But its only possible if Epic make a $1,000,000 engine gift to Fargo, because Unreal Engine is extremely expensive.

Well, there's Obsidian's Onyx Engine, which was used for DSIII. If BF is still in good relations with the people at Obsidian, then that may be an option. However, they would still need to port it to Linux and MacOS, because I doubt that it has support for these OSes.

I think we will see something like that.

[Burt Gummer]

But its only possible if Epic make a $1,000,000 engine gift to Fargo, because Unreal Engine is extremely expensive.

Unreal Engine 2 apparently costs US$ 350.000 + 3% Royalties from the game (which at the time of me writing this, would be about 40.000 bucks)

[SXX]

Unreal Engine 2 apparently costs US$ 350.000 + 3% Royalties from the game (which at the time of me writing this, would be about 40.000 bucks)

I don't see any reason why they need outdated engine without latest tools for 3dmax, maya and integrated middleware (scaleform, speedtree, and lot more).
Unreal Engine 3 good not because its "cool-engine" but because its have all required features exclude RPG systems.

[Burt Gummer]

Unreal Engine 2 apparently costs US$ 350.000 + 3% Royalties from the game (which at the time of me writing this, would be about 40.000 bucks)

I don't see any reason why they need outdated engine without latest tools for 3dmax, maya and integrated middleware (scaleform, speedtree, and lot more).
Unreal Engine 3 good not because its "cool-engine" but because its have all required features exclude RPG systems.

I am not FOR this. I just wanted to illustrate that even the outdated Unreal Engine 2 would eat up fucktons of money.

[SXX]

I am not FOR this. I just wanted to illustrate that even the outdated Unreal Engine 2 would eat up fucktons of money.

Agree, too expensive

[Bryce777]

Unreal is crap anyway, especially for making anything but an FPS. It's probably one of the biggest reasons all the games are exactly the same, since it's used so much and is so inflexible.

[Vovan]

I haven't read the whole thread, just the last couple of pages, so perhaps I am rehashing the obvious, but it seems to me that Unreal engine would be a waste of money for a game that aims for a top-down perspective, and turn-based action. It seems to me that there's no reason to spend the aforementioned tons of money on an engine, the majority of whose features you are not going to use. The only real advantage of using it is that it would presumably make it easier to port the game to mac and potentially consoles. But still not sure if it would have enough bang for the buck of a fairly cash-strapped project.

[Bryce777]

The only good thing about it is havoc physics. Having destructible terrain would be good but it's not as important to an RPG as a game like Jagged Alliance 2 or X-Com.

[Burt Gummer]

The only good thing about it is havoc physics. Having destructible terrain would be good but it's not as important to an RPG as a game like Jagged Alliance 2 or X-Com.

Hmm, when it comes to havoc physics ... what about Valves Source Engine?
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wik ... e_Features

Valve claims "extremely competitive prices" - whatever this means in reality.
http://source.valvesoftware.com/licensing.php

Keep in mind guys that I don't know shit about engines. Just suggestin' here.

[Anarkopsykotik]

Don't you guys think the best would be an engine created for the game after all?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

what about Valves Source Engine?

MacOS support through wrappers (that mean bad performance) and no Linux support.