Game News Dead State, DoubleBear's Zombie RPG, To Go Kickstarter

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That's what I already suggested on the thread at Iron Tower. The last thing DB should do right now is rush for KS. They should take their time now, start publicizing their game outside of the RPG-only forums, wait until Obsidian/MCA start their KS project and start the DS project on KS as the OBS/MCA one is coming to an end (like the WL2 project started right at the end of the DFA project).

I have been thinking exactly about this for a couple of years already. I see it almost like a sort of game development singularity because once such an open and flexible engine gets out into the wild, the old business model of developing games is done.

I don't think so, how is this much different from RPG Maker or even NWN mod tools? I mean, sure, we've seen some decent stuff coming out, but nothing that stands out much and a developer could make a living out of it. In the end it would end just like RPG Maker that have a devoted community, but everyone else just looks at the massive amount of shitty games it produced and put everything on the same "meh, another rpg maker game" bag.

Nah, soy brasileño, pero brofisto los hermanos argentinos, sus habitos extranhos...y sus muy bellas chicas.

Pretty much. The same happened with Blades of Avernum (OC+"do it yourself" editor). The engine wasn't graphically intensive (to say the least), which meant that almost anyone could easily make a game. Yet in the end there were only a couple of interesting modules. Basically, same as NWN/NWN2 but on a limited scale.

I was thinking the same thing lately, sometimes I get into this nostalgia trips about NWN1 toolset. The game was utter shit, the engine was crap, but it's total mod-friendly nature produced really good thing.
Modders, in every game and community, shown to be able to produce really good stuff, even with a shitty base as the horrible 3d of NWN.

There are many addons for Infinity Engine and Oblivion/Skyrim, but they are all plugins to the main game. The first because creating new stuff in 2D would require artistic hand, second for it's first person engine and plugin-oriented toolset (correct me if I'm wrong on this last one).

I'd stop smoking for a month to save money to kickstart a project like this.

RPG Maker and the NWN mod tools stop short of what I was thinking. I'm talking about a proper engine and associated tools released as open source software, so that, if the engine or the tools need to be modified, anyone could do it without having to pay licenses or royalties. All that you can do with the NWN mod tools is more NWN. I'm not saying that a good designer couldn't go nuts and create a great module, but it would still be just a NWN module. I understand where you and VD are coming from. If you're interested exclusively in game design and consider the engine and tools just something that you have to fight with in order to manage to create your game vision, I don't find it odd that you don't give a shit about having an open engine and open tools because, even if they were open, you would want to avoid having to modify them. But there's more to game development than game design.

We talked about this before. Even with a proper engine and the associate tools and open source, community output would be minimal and flawed. It's always this way.

Remember when Open Office went... open? They figured it'd become the greatest word processor of all time, with all these hackers just waiting to improve the program. Well, years later, the thing is still developed by 90% of the original core team because nobody really wants to put the work in.

You can already in theory make the greatest games in FRUA, NWN or RPG Maker. But few do. It's too much work, and even with the best toolset, it'd still be, especially for no compensation.

I don't think having an open engine would change that. After all there are already many open engines, open rulesets, open everything. But learning to use them and using them is a big challenge. I've been trying to make an RPG for years and I'm still not even sure WHICH of the many open engines and software development kits to use. Heck, I haven't even decided on a language because the freedom is staggering.

You need to be a very special, dedicated person to make a game. Having open tools won't make you any more dedicated, and those that have what it takes don't need them in the first place- they'll struggle past every obstacle thanks to their superior Ehrgeiz (work ethic, I think; a German word to mean tenaciously striving to be great).

Yeah, that isn't what I meant either. NWN and RPG maker aren't game engines, but games where you can make other games.

I was talking about the actual engine that NWN and RPG Maker were built with.

All modern games are using game engines... and a lot of them are licensed rather than built from the bottom up.

This. I'll never understand some people's obsession with engines and mod tools. That is only one small part of making a quality game/mod and the other key elements are rarely there.

Procedural asset creation. If and when people take up on it and there is a wide spectrum procedural asset creation platform at some point rather than an open game modding platform, that's when things might really take off.

So much this. It's asset creation that is the real obstacle to making games. Much more time consuming than the design portion. It is easy to imagine something or get an idea. The work is in making it become reality.

beth's toolsets are not centered around plugins at all. it's just that these are the fastest and easiest thing to do. the majority of the modders never get above the skills needed to create a total conversion or even an alternate starting location. best examples would be nehrim, arktwend or andoran.

there's also no need for a kickstarter funded engine. there are enough open souce engines out there for almost every imaginable case. as said above the hardest part is to bring your ideas to fruition, may it be asset creation or engine adaption.

Yep, in theory you can use the Beth toolkits to make your own games that use the associated engines.

Download the Unity engine, it's free. It has a gazillion functions pre-built and waiting for your command, no need to worry about the heavy lifting, it's all worked out for you. Of course, you have to tell it what to do, and that means coding. Computers have this nasty habit of doing exactly what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do. Don't forget to get a modeler or artist to help you make your concept look pretty. Then make it all work. And on top of that, actually be fun.

Software development is time consuming and difficult, always has been. We have great tools these days but it still takes *work*. Lots of it.

As to the Kickstarter thing, it's interesting to see how the Codex was on a monumental high, a massive frenzy in the last couple of weeks. Now it's back to normal. Everyone is broke and hungover and kicking the first dog that comes by.

Personally, I'd have given my money to DB before Fargo or the other guys even though most of the games appeal to me. Of course announcing your intent to jump on the bandwagon with a tone that suggests you've lost steam doesn't help. Perhaps there is a use for marketing guys that help you line up wiz-bang videos and buzz words all in a row.

It's been a fascinating few weeks, I think we can all agree on that.

Making mods is a lot simpler than making games, so I don't see how having open access to a more complex engine would change so much. And there is currently a ton of indies doing various games, but big complex singleplayer games like RPGs are just really hard to make.

Btw, can anyone enlighten me if there's some exceptionally good player-made campaigns for Realmz or Blades of Exile? I remember hearing that BoA had a lot less mod activity than BoE at least.

Yeah, both of them had a number of good campaigns from what I've heard. I think Realmz died when Fantasoft stop supporting it, and a lot of BoE people didn't feel like moving on to BoA for various reasons (BoA was inferior in some ways, man had gotten used to BoE, Vogel hadn't supported BoE and many felt burned). I've also heard FRUA had a lot of good adventures. I remember an old adventure game maker for the Mac, World Builder, that also had a following and produced a lot of games, some of which were pretty good/interesting.

So good communities do develop from good RPG makers, but they don't come out that often, and the ones that did have been abandoned. Hopefully Knights of the Chalice 2 will be good.

Some years ago I imagined the future of gaming would lie in companies specializing in certain libraries. Like very professional AI, landscape, weather engines, etc. The actual game developers could license the libraries and easily build modular products, which benefit from regular updates to the 3rd party modules and advanced modding capabilities.

Right now all that stuff has to be made for every game individually, and is usually mediocre. Another advantage would be that the knowledge in using/modding the libraries could be universally applied to several products, not just one.

I don't know if this will every happen though. SpeedTree is such an example. There are also several physics engines, which work well and are used with success by many (indie) games.
But mostly companies prefer re-inventing the wheel, and usually fail in several areas.

When you talk about open source projects, I think it is very unlikely to succeed. FIFE for example is such an attempt, but it looks like it's not working, or not getting professional enough. JA2 1.13 also could have been such a platform, if they had only stayed on focus, and made the game engine really OPEN, not just bloat it with more & more dubious stuff.

In the end, nobody needs a half finished engine that works only to a certain degree and leaves him on his own when problems come up. I think every one who already programmed with such stuff will know what I mean.

One major problem is that there have already been examples when a very talented individual made an absolutely amazing open source engine, the guy later got hired by a big company and was forced to abandon the open source stuff at that point. A good example for this would be AntiGrain, which could have been used for beautiful 2D vector graphics games with excellent zooming capabilities, including seemless zooming of the UI http://www.antigrain.com/ Imagine this used in a strategy game like Clausewitz, it would look so much better.

I'm also thinking about using Unity, because I prefer programming in C# to C++, and because the games I've seen made with it really work as they should (not like many Java / browser abominations). Like many other people I failed in Ogre3D because way too many things have to rely on half baked stuff (sound and UI for example).

But Unity is a game engine, which means lots of programming, and I believe people here were thinking about something much more high level. There is a (big) difference between making something inside Morrowind for example, and programming from scratch with an advanced game engine.

Don't give up on C++ yet, give C4 Engine a try before you go Unity. To the Unity people, you are just a number in a huge crowd. With C4 you get full source and the guy that wrote the code, answers your questions almost immediately. And the code base is excellent.

Hmmm, I wonder why Blades of Avernum failed, but there were so many amazing FRUA modules and hacks (total conversions) developed.

Oh wait, nm, I figured it out. Vogel games aren't that good and he survives based on a small but loyal fan base, which means not many people to make modules.

But yeah, FRUA was something of a spectacular success in this regard. I can definitely see it being a lot harder to make a modern game though, what with having to animate the leaves on every single tree and add realistic boob jiggle to every character.

I know what you mean. My programs in C++ (e.g. Ogre3D) were so damn snappy and responsive. But it was too much work to handle UI stuff, even setting up the compiler is a chore. Developing in C# by comparison is always a breeze.

Comparing Ogre to any professionally made and supported game engine. Well, its incomparable. Ogre is the Linux of game engines. Its good if your time isn't worth anything.

As for setting projects up in C4, you just copy an existing project file (which is a text file), search and replace the project name in it, and you have a brand new project that works perfectly.

C4 has its own interface class and visual interface editor and there are plenty of examples, which you can take from Eric's code and make your own things, which I happen to be doing right now for a recast navigation editor.

Have a look at C4's visual panel editor here:
http://www.terathon.com/wiki/index.php/Using_the_Panel_Editor
http://www.terathon.com/wiki/index.php/Widgets

As I said, the worst part about Unity is there is no personal support from the guys that make the engine, which you really need if you are making games. The only support I know of that you get from Unity, is from other forum users, most of whom are kids. Perhaps it improves if you give them $1500 or whatever it is these days?

The guy giving you personal support at C4, has a Ph.D. in Computer Science, a Masters Degree in Mathematics and has shipped AAA games for well known companies. Have a look at his profile here:

http://www.terathon.com/lengyel/

I don't want to be a fan boi, so all I will do is point you in the right direction. By all means use the free version of Unity, but try C4 as well. I tried to do things with Unity a couple of years ago and made the same arguments as you are about C#. And guess what? Unity and C# are history and I am not going back.

For me, the hardest part of 3D engines is the 3D mathematics and that difficulty won't decrease, depending on the engine.

Thanks, I really should have a look at C4. It's already stored in my memory. Although maths it not my particular speciality I did not have much trouble with 3D mathematics but what stopped me was the messy stuff, mingling C++ with ANSI C, Windows API, and such things.

I still battle with 3D math, because I am so forgetful. Hopefully this is the year that will change, because I will be using it a lot.

As for C4, the fastest way to get things done in it I have found, is to find something similar to what you want to do, in Eric's source code and then adapt it to suit your needs, kind of like you would a construction set. Case in point, my editor uses parts of three of Eric's editors, and it uses a few other things, taken from elsewhere in his source code. So if you decide to get it later on, I suggest you get the version with full source code.

The other thing you miss out on when you go to C#, is all the libraries that have already been made in C and C++ and there are a lot. Someone told me, you can still use them in Unity, but it sounded like you really need to know what you are doing.

BTW
C4 2.8 is coming out in the next week with lots of additions, so have a look at the demo.