am i the only one who thinks this is just a way to plug his engine here? some dude who registered 2 days ago post about something we have no reason to care about out of nowhever and oh miracle , the maker of said thing somehow fanatically googles his own engine name all day to see where it gets posted about & defend it & comes create an account here to defend it! this so totally definately doesn't sound like a crappy commercial (hint , the site name might have misled you , no one here is likely to buy a 50K usd licence for anything)

Quote:Original post by ranakor
am i the only one who thinks this is just a way to plug his engine here? some dude who registered 2 days ago post about something we have no reason to care about out of nowhever and oh miracle , the maker of said thing somehow fanatically googles his own engine name all day to see where it gets posted about & defend it & comes create an account here to defend it! this so totally definately doesn't sound like a crappy commercial (hint , the site name might have misled you , no one here is likely to buy a 50K usd licence for anything)

I would be willing to bet that most of the GDNet members who have read this thread now think his "engine" is a scam. So, if what you say was indeed his plan to get some sales, it was a seriously crappy plan [lol]

Disclaimer: I am not actually willing to bet ;)

Having actually tested the engine myself out back when it was the Abyssal Engine it wasn't all that bad but not quiet what I expected based on the hype and spin. This is not saying that it is bad but more along the lines that it could still be rather usefull for some company that actually had the funds and wanted to save time if it fit their wants and needs. Even though this is a game development site most of the people here are not truely involved with projects with budgets that even come close to the price of this technology or any other commercial middleware for that matter. With that said most people here need to chill down a bit. Most of the people that usually are angry at this sort of thing are the ones who want everything like this product promises handed over to them for next to nothing. I have seen people talk down a product in hopes to then turn around and practically beg for it at dirt cheap prices because they conviced the people at large thats what it was really worth to back them up. As for the mention of other licensors if I remember correctly the Tshwane University of Technology aquired a license for this as well back when it was the Abyssal Engine developed by Quad Software LTD.

Quote:Original post by BushHatesBlacks
CTar - the site looks and works perfectly fine for me in both IE and Firefox.
you sound like one of those disgruntled hobbyists who think they know what they're talking about but 9 times out of 10 don't. Why don't you go back to using WorldForge or something? I am sure something like that is better suited for your pocket book.
This stuff is in the same class range as HeroEngine and if it ever does get some kinda open source variation of it you would be the first one in line to download.

The same company who built the core of this engine long ago also licenses out a really awesome terrain editor tool called Grome.

http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor

they also done work for companies like NCsoft on games like Guild Wars.

I doubt anyone will get an engine from a guy who has the nick "BushHatesBlacks"...

/MindWipe

PS. Yes, the IPs are the same

Quote:By Shotgun Ninja:
I'm not gonna trust a guy with the words "Warning Level: 10%" next to his name. And frankly, Troy, from an outsider's standpoint (I haven't even seen the site yet), you do sound like a scam artist, clouding our perceptions with a whole lot of nothing about the decency and legality of your engine.

I am still not following any of the logic in this thread, especially due to the lack thereof. This involving Colton Burgess should not equal automatic scam. I am sure Troy himself knew who he was dealing with when he bought that from Colton. Now, there are reputable members here that are defending Troy, and (almost) nothing but newbies flaming him. What should that tell you? Second of all, how can you make that judgement not having seen the website? Thats quite a stretch, but I guess it fits in with the rest of the logic in this thread.

Quote:By Shotgun Ninja:
And yes, tunabun's response to this was, I have to admit, a little unmerited and demonizing, but he may be right. I will give him the benefit of the doubt simply because he was the one to post this, not you.

Umm, what? You will give a guy the benefit of the doubt who joined GD.net just to flame? Granted, Troy joined just to defend himself, but lets read the thread now. There is another post that somehow concludes that since he is here, that somehow means the price should be meant for us "no-budget" indies. Another stretch. Let me explain. As someone who runs a website, I know how good it can be to look at the stats. When I see a lot of hits to my site coming from another site, I go investigate. When I see falacies about what I am working on, I try to clear them up. I have done that exact thing before. So, again, Troy is well within his rights here. No bad rep needed.

Quote:By Shotgun Ninja:
And riddle me this: When was the last time you actually looked at the engine's source code? If it was more than a year ago, then you should be ashamed of yourself. (If otherwise, then I apologise.) Because even if Lua was the the best game programming language then, it isn't now. And besides, who are you to make that claim? That's to be decided by a committee, not by one man alone. So many of your claims would be outdated, giving you a neccessity to update your site and fix the aforementioned errors.

Now who here has done the research? After gleaning tidbits from the various posts, it is true that this came from a sketchy guy. Colton has a bad reputation. Now, it is known that he had actual technology to work with. The "anonymous" post-mortem written about Mourning indicates that they had an actual development staff, and therefore, had actual technology to work with. Now, as someone who has followed many failed games, including one which started me on my quest, I know a few things about them. Mourning was a failure because of the leadership, decisions, etc, NOT the tech. So, it is entirely possible that the tech that this uses, which comes from Thrones of Chaos (according to the Shacknews article), is completely legit. They have gotten real devs to work on this, and now Troy decided to buy it from Colton, after his failed MMO #2. Sound likely? Yes, absolutely.

BushHatesBlacks was actually pulling some useful information using the information trail found on the internet. This is what we all should be doing. Now, I don't know why he got banned, or really care, I am just looking at facts.

Now, as to Troy and the "mistakes" in his documentation, so what? He explained them perfectly well. You can't fault him for trying. Yes, it is going to make some people stop and think, but Troy said it himself. People research things they are going to put their money into. Now, from what I have seen, I see no reason to continue flaming this engine. Everything commercial uses fancy words. How is what they did any different? And who here has actually seen the engine? No one that I can see other than Corman. Now, since I know Corman personally, and I know that his word is worth its weight in Gold. That says something to its credit.

So, where are we? We have credibility for the tech: 3, flamers: 0. Seems to me that anyone who knows how to research and critically think can come to their own conclusion. Do I know Troy? No. Had I ever heard anything about this before today? No. But what I did do was read the thread and look for true evidence. Could it still be a scam? Possibly, but very unlikely.

Benjamin Heath and others are obviously trying to find out the truth, while the flamers are missing it.

Well, I felt the need to comment. I don't like seeing someone get dumped on for undeserved reasons, regardless of who they are.

I may not know fully who these one day only drive by posters may be and why some have been banned (outside of an obviously explictly selected user name) but there is really some air here that still needs cleaning and clearing up. Hopefully with my longer running history here on GDNet people will possibly listen to me a bit better than others in a more neutral way versus the somewhat heated bias and bitter views that have been presented thus far.

From what I am seeing is alot of emotional baggage being dragged back from the rough ride when this was the Abyssal Engine being developed by Quad Software LTD for use in Mourning that was being created by Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC. Most of the negatives that are flying around should really be understood that it was the game itself and not the technology that had such a tainted background. The game itself has been renamed and refocused time and time again from "Mourning" to "Realms of Torment" to "Realms of Krel" to "Thrones of Chaos" (this one being more than likely where the current engine and company name derived from) not to mention how many companies have bought and transfered this all around like a mistreaded step child (more than likely for the same reasons presented here because of all the massive back log of crap slinging for the wrong reasons).

Even if just by association by technology alone there is obviously alot of conspiracy theories abound that have no real first hand experience and nothing more than speculation and personal distrust to spurt at possibly a very legit and valid company trying to give life back into a very useful and relatively resonably priced product. When I tested out the October 31, 2003 build of the Abyssal Engine using demo assets from Realms of Torment it did indeed provide much of what is even promissed today with the exception of the full seamless transtions was still under development at that time in 2004. Then for its time it was very much competitive for what was available back then. If this was its state then there is no telling the real improvements since then truly fleshing out the published features list available now.

The proof in the pudding already is with Quad Software itself today. Adrian Licuriceanu who was the lead engine programmer of the Abyssal Engine (now the Chaos Game Engine) obviously has worth in his work to continue on with Grome (a very useful tool indeed and very much an extension of earlier work done with the Abyssal/Chaos terrain tools) as well as doing work for NCSoft/ArenaNet on Guild Wars Factions. As with any middleware there is no direct silver bullet for all needs, wants, or problems. This technology was created and targeted for a specific reason and is for commercial use and is suited for that market. The reasons why there are so many different middlewares out there for the same purposes is because everones needs and wants are different. If what you see in this engine fits your projects specs and you have a serious budget then this would be a very valid solution to pick because heavens knows you would be strapped to create anything close to what it is really offering on your own within its price range.

I may not fully agree to how people on both sides are conducting themselves on all of this but everyone really does need to take a step back and seprate out all of the dirty details to find what really is solid here. As with any product outhere don't take anything on blind faith, test are retest, and buyer always beware because you get what you pay for. But sometimes even with what others view as downsides may not really matter much in ones own project and this may be the best value for your needs. Keep in mind that I am only taking a stance on the technology itself and not directly on the people or companies associated with it and or the personal or business practices that may or not be taking place here, elsewhere, or in the past.

@Jerky:
I see that you were posting at the same time I did so I am sorry if I did not directly touch upon anything you may have brought up but thanks for joining in.

[Edited by - Corman on June 7, 2007 9:42:10 PM]