Engine

[Brother None]

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

Not really an option. Prohibitively expensive/time-consuming.

[falloutgod13]

Not really an option. Prohibitively expensive/time-consuming.

Very true, not to mention it takes a lot of time to work out the bugs. While it can be less limiting being able to control every aspect of your own creation the reverse is true for the time it takes to make adjustments to the engine.

[Madball357]

My ''realistic'' wet dream for an engine would be the Steam Engine (Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil)

It used to belong to Troika, I guess now is in the hands of Atari? Can someone confirm this.

No idea what the licensing price would be, either.

[dmazz]

In the long term, the engine is important because future growth needs to be taken into account. Future expansions, sequels and user mods. In the short term it's about speed. Time spent working on the engine is lost to world building, a six hour long Wasteland 2 RPG will be hard too swallow. World building speed is important, because time is money.

Adjusted for inflation, Fallout cost over $4 200 000 to make. So it looks like this game is underfunded, even more so if the engine needs to be built or heavily modified. (Remember also that Fallout 1 which is much shorter than Fallout 2.)

In regards to the silent storm engine. The game silent storm is a fully 3D turn based tactical combat game with guns, with RPG elements like a loot/item pickup system, equipping stuff to ones character, character leveling stats and inventory management. It also has a rudimentary text dialogue system. Sound effects and voice are in there too. And even the travel menu is reminiscent of Fallouts. So basically everything that Wasteland needs is already provided. You could literally make a silent storm wasteland total conversion and it would work. The main problems are linux/macosx porting being questionable and I'm not even sure whether the engine is available for sale. Another thing to consider is that this is Wasteland 2, an iconic game, grandfather of the Fallout franchise. So there's a chance the engine owners may be very receptive and lower the price. Perhaps even selling the rights to the engine source code, enabling the release of its world building toolsets to the public. Perhaps swedish game companies are nicer.

The silent storm engine is also obsolete. Id software released the quake III engine source code under GNU after six years (1999 to 2005). It's now been 9 years since Silent Storm was released. So it could be a bargain, worth enquiring into.

For linux/macosx support, promises were made, I wasn't aware of that.

Open source considerations just adds another unnecessary limitation to engine choice. I want a quality InXile RPG story, not subpar quality user made stories released years later. I have little faith in the writing quality of user mods and as such don't think mod accommodation is important in regards to an RPG, which is my primary interest in Wasteland 2.

[Korrvin]

In Wasteland 2, whatever engine was chosen, I would like to see these things (and most certainly I'm not alone in this) concerning engine in particular:

1. Full (isometric or similar) 3D, rotation and zooming ability
2. Full game physics and rag doll effects
3. "Dynamic" environment, meaning i.e. trees are bending as wind blows, creatures roam the land etc.
4. Destructible environment when ever possible (for time and practical reason I don't want ALL to be destructible)
5. Built-in modding ability at the start (well this would be nice but not top priority)
6. Full multi CPU usage.
7. As few as possible "hard coded" elements.
8. Something I missed and is important.

That said, imo, there are at least three things that we must take into considerations concerning game engine. They are functionality, portability and efficiency.

The functionality is all about how well suited engine is for this particular game (and what devs want from it). Parts that are important are graphic/physics/CPU usage (purest and lowest core of the game), how good are capabilities of scripting ingame-events (quests, random encounters etc), dialogue (ability to interact with the player), how good is an AI, POV ability, and how all these things fit together into one flexible package.

Portability is more or less self explanatory. It's an ability of this package to be exported to other platforms. As I understood right, Uniengine is one of the few choices out there which price wouldn't rip the skin of our backs.

Efficiency is how fast and good devs can develop the game without too much additional programming to fit their needs. For the rest of us, does it have modding kit, how easy is to import/export some of the resources from the game etc.

Frankly, as many of you did too, I played a lot of "isometric" games. The engine that have made me smile the most is the Silent Storm one. It's somewhat similar to the Van Buren one, but was much more rafined and somehow very sleek and non intrusive gameplay-wise. That might be animation or art that I liked, but I regardless, engine was a great part of it.

True, the Silent Storm engine was an old one and I don't think it has all the necessary tools to satisfy all the requirements mentioned above, but If it wasn't to be used, all great qualities of it should be incorporated into the chosen one.

We all want good gameplay and we shouldn't forget that more time spent on trivial stuff like scripting problems, there will be less time to insert all the content there is or we wish it's in. So, choosing the engine is a telling sign that will probably decide how big in scope this game will be and what to expect from it.

So probably Uniengine (if devs can make some nice deal about price). Can we live with that one?

[homeslice82]

Engine? For the water purifier? Pick it up at the nomad camp. It costs ~500 bucks, but you get more than reimbursed when you fix the purifier.

/wastelandtrance

[dmazz]

1. Full (isometric or similar) 3D, rotation and zooming ability
2. Full game physics and rag doll effects
3. "Dynamic" environment, meaning i.e. trees are bending as wind blows, creatures roam the land etc.
4. Destructible environment when ever possible (for time and practical reason I don't want ALL to be destructible)
5. Built-in modding ability at the start (well this would be nice but not top priority)
6. Full multi CPU usage.
7. As few as possible "hard coded" elements.

Problem is no engine that's 3D with features you've outlined (first four features I want too) that's commercial has been used to make RPG's, not even 'arcade' rpg's. That could just be a coincidence but it also may be that rpg's require established toolkits to build content that commerical engines don't provide, due to their being little commerical interest in making rpg's. Forcing heavy modification of the engine and lengthy creation of tools which kind of defeats the purpose of licensing/buying an engine, most rpg's don't bother and just build their own engine.

So if Wasteland 2 building it's own engine is too time/resource consuming, then that leaves the other option of using an already established rpg engine. The infinity engine is one example, arcanum/ToEE engine is another, silent storm engine is another. So in regards to engines we should set our sights on old second hand rpg engines that may be available for sale.

Regarding portability. Fargo seems very confident that porting to linux and macosx is not a problem for any engine. Just a question of money, by the sounds of it, around $250 000 as a median figure. He did say at 1.5 million, macosx and linux ports would be made, he thinks the game will cost 1 million to develop. So I don't think people should be worried about it.

ps
Silent Storm engine has the first four features. Graphics don't worry me cause heroes of might and magic V used that engine 6 years ago and it looked good enough for me. My main concern is A.I implementation may be difficult to get up to real time speed.

[cdoublejj]

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

Not really an option. Prohibitively expensive/time-consuming.

not sure if the dev team is interested in this thread or not if so there are some open source engines out there. the most recent one to catch my attention was irrlicht is supports both DirectX and OpenGL also OpenAL and supports various plugins as well as user made plugins for things like sky boxes and what not.

also from what i heat UDK engine is royalty free in you don't make any or under certain amount of money and then there is royalty of some many percent if the game is successful

those are just two off the top of my head.

[Korrvin]

Problem is no engine that's 3D with features you've outlined (first four features I want too) that's commercial has been used to make RPG's, not even 'arcade' rpg's. That could just be a coincidence but it also may be that rpg's require established toolkits to build content that commerical engines don't provide, due to their being little commerical interest in making rpg's. Forcing heavy modification of the engine and lengthy creation of tools which kind of defeats the purpose of licensing/buying an engine, most rpg's don't bother and just build their own engine.

Could be true, but "wasn't used" doesn't mean "it can't be" as there are a lot of them and there are some engines that should be checked. I think I have seen Bethesda's new (is it creation?) game engine tutorial somewhere with all these options (not so sure about rag doll mechanic tho.). Also, Bestway's GEM engine is quite capable in doing first 4 features mentioned (True, it's mainly used in RTS games). To be clear, I'm aware of the difference between RTS and RPG separation in this problem.

So if Wasteland 2 building it's own engine is too time/resource consuming, then that leaves the other option of using an already established rpg engine. The infinity engine is one example, arcanum/ToEE engine is another, silent storm engine is another. So in regards to engines we should set our sights on old second hand rpg engines that may be available for sale.

That's my main concern - regarding utilization of present day hardware. Let's say we all agree that one of those engines you mentioned is chosen (tho infinity engine is vaporware for now Iirc). There is a problem of using all potential of present day CPU/GPUs which will be very decremental to not only performance but on the scope of the game also (as they will cut some of properties down for game to be playable is some sense).

Regarding portability. Fargo seems very confident that porting to linux and macosx is not a problem for any engine. Just a question of money, by the sounds of it, around $250 000 as a median figure. He did say at 1.5 million, macosx and linux ports would be made, he thinks the game will cost 1 million to develop. So I don't think people should be worried about it.

There must be a reason why he said it so and I can only believe that he knows something that we don't, but I'm sure we'll agree that engine that is designed to help portability is only a plus.

Silent Storm engine has the first four features. Graphics don't worry me cause heroes of might and magic V used that engine 6 years ago and it looked good enough for me. My main concern is A.I implementation may be difficult to get up to real time speed.

Agree, AI could be especially important, plus I must add dialog system (which is very rudimentary as you have notices, it's crucial for an RPG) and problem about multi CPU usage which could be of minor issue, but I find it important for various reasons. Also I don't have info on what's the legal status of that engine, how "open" it is for modding or does it have any technical support. It would be a real shame If we have i.e. dual core cpu and not use one of them for example fully for an AI or procedural generation of stuff in "real time". That alone could be revolutionary, but with an old engine - I'm not so sure.

[Bryce777]

Silent storm uses some german engine and has its own code on top of that. It's not really feasible to get at it in any way or to modernize it.

[cdoublejj]

wait by portable does he mean cross platform or load your game ofof flash drive on win, mac, and linux ?

[dmazz]

Also indie developer engines appear too basic for a multimillionaire budgeted game like this. When it comes to engines Wasteland 2 is 'caught in the middle'. Too well funded to be satisfied with an open source indie engine, but not well funded enough to develop their own or do what amounts to the same with a commercial off the shelf engine.
So this leaves 'second hand' ex-rpg engines that are a little old in the tooth, but are both functional and within budget/time constraints. I'd guess the budget of ToEE was less than 3 million(?), and it used the Arcanum engine. It's not too disimiliar to Wasteland 2.

This thread is just kicking cans. The devs know what they are doing and have alot more knowledge/expeirence/contacts than most of us. It's a fun discussion though.

problem about multi CPU usage which could be of minor issue, but I find it important for various reasons.

I don't know squat about cpu optimization for newer games. (aware of multicores though) But I do notice that old games like silent storm run fast on my computer. I must be missing something cause it seems to me if you choose an old engine it should run faster on newer hardware?

Something that niggles my mind is graphics card support, silent storm and those old engines seem to have pathetic support for super duper graphics cards, which offloads a huge amount of processing power from the cpu, important in this case cause there will be a heavy reliance on A.I which I've been led to belive is very CPU intensive.

ps
By 'portable' I mean ease of being ported to another OS platform, here macosx and linux. My bad, I'm not a programmer, just making up words.

[PiPboy]

heavy reliance on A.I which I've been led to belive is very CPU intensive.

I doubt it will be any more super intensive Ai then modern shooters which need to think up tactical strategies on the fly. This is a turn based after all. Meaning it only needs to think about 1 characters actions at a time. So you can just throw that CPU intensive out the window. This all comes down to optimization.

More then likely he already has an engine in mind [B.F]. We are just going over which one. Since B.F already mentioned its going multi-platform you already know its going to be a M.Plat. Engine. So you can rule quite a few out.

Now the question is which engine.
But considering the fact that Its a top down isometeric turn based engine. That also rules out a few engines.
Also its probably not physics heavy. As its more of a point and click. Physics at most maybe used for effects \ destructible enviroments [if their is any - again more of an engine limitation]

Who knows, but more then likely its going to be something he already worked with considering the short development cycle. So their is no suprises.
Which could even be a
Rehashed Infinity Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Engine
The Snowblind Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowblind_ ... ame_engine
the GemRB engine http://www.gemrb.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start

For Laffs.
Fox Engine: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Kojima ... 40109.html

[Ech]

Who knows, but more then likely its going to be something he already worked with considering the short development cycle. So their is no suprises.
Which could even be a
Rehashed Infinity Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Engine
The Snowblind Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowblind_ ... ame_engine
the GemRB engine http://www.gemrb.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start

For Laffs.
Fox Engine: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Kojima ... 40109.html

Personally, I wouldn't mind BG2/FO2 era graphics and style. I'm in this for the writing and (hopefully dark) humor.

However, if engine age doesn't matter, why not the Aurora engine from NWN1?

- It's relatively more advanced than the ones listed above.
- It's is geared towards making RPGs (NWN1, Witcher 1)
- It's a decent modding tool if the community content for NWN1 is anything to go by.
- It can be licensed by third parties. (eg CD Projekt for Witcher 1)
- It already has a native Linux client and an OSX port.

The only question is, would the pro's match the cost vs something more modern like Unigine (which as quoted somewhere earlier as around 30k USD) or developing one from scratch. Even if RPG specific tools need to be built for Unigine, they would need to do that anyway if they're doing it from scratch.

That said, If they're even thinking of targeting any other platform (mobile/console), I would think the initial investment in creating any absent tools would be offset by not needing to recode the engine for non-x86 platforms which it already supports according to http://unigine.com/products/unigine/#platforms.

[PiPboy]

From what I heard modding for never winter nights was equivelent going to medical school.
Requires alot of dedication to bring anything out of it.

Though I never played it, nor tried to mod it. But i have read a few articles about it.

[Red Rat]

If we are talking about old engines, I think that Fallout Tactics engine is better suited for Wasteland 2 than Aurora. Also, this:

This thread is just kicking cans. The devs know what they are doing and have alot more knowledge/expeirence/contacts than most of us. It's a fun discussion though.

What kind of engines did InXile use on their previous games? I think the devs are going to work with a familiar engine if possible.

[Burt Gummer]

What kind of engines did InXile use on their previous games? I think the devs are going to work with a familiar engine if possible.

I don't know about the engine, but apparently this is the last game released by inXile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxVcclP0 ... re=related

[Sub-Human]

What kind of engines did InXile use on their previous games? I think the devs are going to work with a familiar engine if possible.

I don't know about the engine, but apparently this is the last game released by inXile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxVcclP0 ... re=related

Looks decent enough, but unfitting to Wasteland 2. We were talking about isometric, after all. And Hunted uses a 3rd person perspective, so not much luck with that (dunno if InXile even has rights to that engine).

[Brother None]

I don't know about the engine, but apparently this is the last game released by inXile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxVcclP0 ... re=related

As far as I know (see here), it used Unreal Engine 3. As did Hunted: The Demon's Forge, their last "large-scale" release.

Looks decent enough, but unfitting to Wasteland 2. We were talking about isometric, after all. And Hunted uses a 3rd person perspective, so not much luck with that (dunno if InXile even has rights to that engine).

Don't get bogged down by that. 3D Engines aren't commonly overly specialized. Camera angles are a breeze to change in an engine like UE3.

[PiPboy]

Wait does that mean it *possibly* uses UE3? :\
Intresting.....