hmmmm, yes, i have read about garage games being sold recently and that Torque got major improvements recently as well. Hence i was quite skeptical about the 3-4 year old reviews.

I am rather still undecided about the game engine to use, I have read that Torque has a superior network code, which was one of the points that interested me.

I may play around with both engines and see which I like more, thanks alot for the informative replies, they are very much appreciated. Any more would still be welcome too, and would help me (or future aspiring developers) with the decision!

Listen, we aren't perfect and we still make mistakes, but we've come a long way, and fixed a lot of things. And I'm very proud of the things we've accomplished over the past couple of years.

Ogre is a good rendering module, but not a full game engine so there is a lot that you don't get. Of course, there are several engines that are built around Ogre that you can choose from.

The bottom line is that there still isn't a perfect engine for every scenario/game/genre...and who knows...maybe there never will be.

When asking which engine you are interested in, it's best to describe what you are trying to accomplish and use the engine that best suits your needs. If you describe what your goal is, I can tell you Torque's strengths and weaknesses and I'm sure others can chime in with their opinion about the engines that they know well.

The good news for developers is that you can pretty much use any engine for free in one way or another until you decide what is the best for you.

hmm okay, to elaborate on my game a little more:
- i plan for a multiplayer system (minimum 5v5, maybe going upward to 15v15) on a dedicated server.
- there will be a story mode which will have scripted events, etc where 1-3 friends may join to aid.
- the game will be in third person view, camera losely follows the character.
- There will be ranged and melee combat.
- I plan to use hitbox detection for weapons and shields.
- there will be aerial battles too (which requires jetpacks, aerial physics, etc).
- planning to implement a feature where the player may shoot grappling hooks onto walls and they may climb or rappel.
- wall jumping
- stealth effect (transparent warpy object)
- the player character models would have changeable parts dependent on what he/she equips (arms, legs, head, etc)
- AI for bots and the story mode.
- having multi platform options is always a plus too.

I'm rather mostly worried about the game engine's network code and limitations (who knows, there may be something that prevents me from doing what i want above).

@Daark - Actually, both. I started using Torque back in 2004 doing while working on a contract with NASA. I then left that company and started my own small business using Torque. I became the unofficial liason for the simulation industry and shortly after that, I started working for InstantAction, the parent company of GarageGames at the time. In 2010 I moved to a new position as director of the engine business. When InstantAction closed in 2010, the GarageGames division was profitable enough to attract new owners who bought the assets, hired me and the others, and we grew the division from 10 employees to around 30.

@Ixsiehn

i plan for a multiplayer system (minimum 5v5, maybe going upward to 15v15) on a dedicated server.[/quote]

Out of the box, Torque 3D is best at handling around 32 players. The networking code hasn't changed a whole lot from when it ran Tribes. They built the networking for the days when people were still using modems, so it's been battle-tested in some pretty extreme scenarios. Torque is very much a networking engine that supports the development of games and the network object is the core of the majority of game driven objects. That's one of the reason Torque has such a steep learning curve...when you want to do something custom, you get pulled pretty quickly into the networking layer of the engine and it takes a bit to learn. You can also compile the engine to run as a dedicated server. With a little bit work, it's pretty easy to get Torque to compile in Linux as a dedicated server...although it's not officially supported out of the box.

there will be a story mode which will have scripted events, etc where 1-3 friends may join to aid.[/quote]
Shouldn't be a big deal...but we don't really have robust camera support for scripted scenes.

the game will be in third person view, camera losely follows the character.[/quote]
Again, not super robust support built in, but there are several free resources that you can look at for something more specific.

There will be ranged and melee combat.[/quote]
Torque doesn't have built in melee combat, we fake it similar to other engines by running an animation and shooting a short lived projectile.

I plan to use hitbox detection for weapons and shields.[/quote]
We do have pretty basic support for hitboxes.

there will be aerial battles too (which requires jetpacks, aerial physics, etc).[/quote]
There actually might be some of the tribes jetpack code still in the engine. Never used it myself. We do have basic support for flying vehicles and hovervehicles, but I don't think those have been part of our QA test plans so I can't comment on the current state of the code.

planning to implement a feature where the player may shoot grappling hooks onto walls and they may climb or rappel.[/quote]
Hrm....that's going to be quite a challenge in any engine. I can't imagine being able to do this in any engine without a lot of custom development.

- wall jumping
- stealth effect (transparent warpy object)
- the player character models would have changeable parts dependent on what he/she equips (arms, legs, head, etc)[/quote]

Nothing too bad there...

AI for bots and the story mode.[/quote]
Our AI support varies. Most people buy one of the AI addon kits. AI tends to require custom solutions to achieve the AI you are looking for.

having multi platform options is always a plus too.[/quote]
Out of the box, you are only going to get PC. We have an OSX version of the current engine, but it's not out of the box ready and I'd only expect an advanced developer to find it useful. Same goes for linux.

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My biggest advice...scale your idea wayyyy back. The game you are describing would take a really big team, and from what I've seen, if you don't go into it with really reasonable expectations about what a beginner can accomplish, you will get frustrated very quickly. Consider starting with 2D. Your chances of finishing your first game go way up....and there's nothing more motivating then actually finishing your game and sharing it with your friends.

yea, its a rather ambitious project. Though, im planning to make it a periodic release of content, learning while i program more of the things in, just needed to make sure the engine i select can at least do most of the stuff (at least by the time i get to developing that part of the game) so that i wont regret my choice down the road. Though it seems, all 3 game engines can handle it.

Thanks alot for the informative replies too, epreisz. I will definitely give torque a try too and see how it feels. I have actually created some 2D games although its mostly during uni, i decided i want to try creating a 3D game and decided to try something like this.

@Dwarfking: thanks for your input too, its also pretty much what i plan to do. I'm also glad to be assured that the books are good.

The compiler(MonoDevelop) makes things a breeze too.

MonoDevelop is NOT a compiler at all. It's an IDE that supports multiple languages.
Personally, I use Aptana Studio 3 for my unityScripting needs. Was a pain to get the contextual code hinting set up, but otherwise, it works well (and lets me work not only on my Unity projects, but also my perl scripts, my css, javascript, and my Maya MEL scripts, and any other language I feel up to coding in).

I'm a big fan of Unity3D. They've done an amazing job with it, in my opinion. Throwing together a simple outdoor environment, with a drag n drop 1st or 3rd person controller takes only a couple of minutes. That will give you a textured terrain, trees blowing in the wind, water, a skybox, shadows (static, baked), etc.

Coming soon is an all new GUI Builder as well, which should ease the pain of coding your game HUDs and menus.

That said, for me, depends on the project I'm working on. These days, I use Unity3d for my more casual game projects, and udk for my bigger, more graphically heavy, project.

Either way though, I can not recommend unity3d highly enough.