So how's Torque?

[cardtrick]

Well, my understanding is that you're nearly finished with the game at this point. I was just wondering how you liked working with Torque to create an RPG.

As is no doubt the case for many Codexers, I have fond dreams of making an indie RPG someday, and I've looked into a few alternatives. FIFE of course seems promising, but is a very, very long way from being a viable engine. In any case, I lack the artistic brilliance necessary to make a nice looking 2-D game, so I'm looking mostly at 3-D engines. Torque seems to be the king of the hill when it comes to indie engines, but I have picked up the impression somewhere along the line that you have come to regret using it. Is that true?

Of the other 3-D options I've looked at, probably the most appealing is an OGRE-derivative with a price range somewhere near that of Torque, called NeoAxis. It's not finished but it seems really interesting, and a lot of its features seem particularly well-suited to making an RPG. Has anyone here tried it, or heard anything much about it?

 

[Zomg]

Why do I always mentally rhyme Torque with ¿Por qué?

 

[Hory]

Perhaps because you don't know how to read "por qué" properly.

 

[Naked Ninja]

I don't know about Vault Dweller, but I'm finding Torque fantastic. A more pertinent question is how much programming experience do you have? No matter which engine you use, an RPG is a significant undertaking, it's never going to be easy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

7/10. There are issues, not every feature works/supported as advertised, and you can tell that it's an old engine, but overall it's decent and, after some workarounds, gets the job done.

I don't regret using it, what I regret is that a better engine wasn't available.

 

[golgotha]

What were some of your biggest issues with Torque aside from the DTS/shadowing problem? I ask because I've yet to work with heavy scripting within the engine.

 

[Nick]

What were some of your biggest issues with Torque aside from the DTS/shadowing problem? I ask because I've yet to work with heavy scripting within the engine.

Well, I love the scripting part There is nothing wrong with scripting engine, it works fine and is quite functional. Exposing class members to console is cool =)
What is really... erm, unconfortable for single-player game, is the client-server architecture of this engine. Torque is designed for multi-player games, and you should always look after network updates, keep in mind what's happening in client side code, what's on server, always check if you're looking at a server object or ghost, etc. This creates a lot of pitfalls and makes the bug-fixing process longer and somewhat more complex.