Is it worth it to create a Game Engine?

Andakinas · 2007-09-25T23:11:14

Hello everyone. I've been wondering this question for a few days now, so I'll finally ask it. There are many game engines out there, but do they offer you a lot? If there isn't much of a difference between making a game engine and just using one premade, please tell me. I'm the type of person who would rather code in c++ than visual basic although it be easier, because c++ is much more powerful. Tell me what you think, and the same question applies for map makers. Thanks!

For Beginners

Started by Andakinas September 25, 2007 04:18 PM

18 comments, last by Telastyn 16 years, 6 months ago

Sneftel

1,788

September 25, 2007 06:57 PM

Quote:Original post by Andakinas
I know that it takes a very long time to make a game with a small team, especially one that doesn't already understand the code.

There's this misperception, perhaps driven by long release cycles of commercial teams or perhaps just by common sense, that a small but driven team can complete a large game given enough time. In fact, planning to spend years developing a game makes it fantastically unlikely that you will ever finish.

jpetrie

13,220

September 25, 2007 07:02 PM

This is what I think.

SyntaxError Line21

122

September 25, 2007 07:05 PM

ok, if the creators of "Bioshock" or "Crysis" Did not make an engine at all for these games and went straight to making these games, would it look as good and is it doable? i'm so confused about all this talk of "game engines" and just making a damn game!!! HELP ME! can it be done!? can you make a game with those kind of graphics without making a damn engine? PLEASE TELL ME IT'S POSSIBLE!, if it's not...then i would rather make a game engine even if it takes me 5 years, just like this one guy in gamedev.net named "Fallingcat".

Djgamez24

142

September 25, 2007 07:14 PM

Okay, simple as this. Read jpetrie's link. Its brillantly put. read it, love it, learn it.

Andakinas

122

Author

September 25, 2007 07:27 PM

Thanks everyone. I did read his link as well. However it's conflicting information to me. Most sources say that it's basically a MUST to have a game engine when creating a mmorpg, and he says the opposite. I'll research more and find this out. I don't personally want to create one, but some tutorials have told me its what I should do. I'll shut up now.

Oluseyi

2,123

September 25, 2007 07:30 PM

Quote:Original post by Andakinas
I'm going into something I don't have a good understanding for.

...

I know it's going to be over a million lines of code...

Stop. Don't hurt yourself. A million lines of code is a very small number for a commercial product. If you're looking at that as some test of how huge the effort will be, you truly have no idea.

Quote:...but in the past 3 days I've read over 300 pages about c++, and learned many things.

The thing is, you've only just begun.

Never lose sight of your goal, which is to write an MMORPG. But do not make your present decisions about learning and technology based on that. Make them, instead, based on what you are capable of and what lies just beyond your current skill level. That way you remain challenged, but not frustrated.

Good luck, and happy hacking!

Dancin_Fool

785

September 25, 2007 07:32 PM

Quote:Original post by SyntaxError Line21
ok, if the creators of "Bioshock" or "Crysis" Did not make an engine at all for these games and went straight to making these games, would it look as good and is it doable? i'm so confused about all this talk of "game engines" and just making a damn game!!! HELP ME! can it be done!? can you make a game with those kind of graphics without making a damn engine? PLEASE TELL ME IT'S POSSIBLE!, if it's not...then i would rather make a game engine even if it takes me 5 years, just like this one guy in gamedev.net named "Fallingcat".

No offense but unless you have a team of engineers and artists, you'll never make something that looks like Bioshock or Crysis. The engine has nothing to do with it, it just makes it easier in the end to turn around another game for the company. An engine is about building that can be reusable by the company over and over again, each time making revisions to create a better product.
Something which needs to be realized is that a lot of the time, while it is the rendering engineers that help to make it possible, it's really about what the artists can do with what they're provided. If you don't have some great artists it doesn't matter what kind of a renderer you have. /End of rant.

jpetrie

13,220

September 25, 2007 07:35 PM

Quote:
Okay, simple as this. Read jpetrie's link. Its brillantly put. read it, love it, learn it.

Thanks!

Quote:
Thanks everyone. I did read his link as well. However it's conflicting information to me. Most sources say that it's basically a MUST to have a game engine when creating a mmorpg, and he says the opposite. I'll research more and find this out. I don't personally want to create one, but some tutorials have told me its what I should do. I'll shut up now.

Well, remember, exactly what constitutes an "engine" is vague and different people mean different things when they say it.

Driv3MeFar

1,080

September 25, 2007 07:38 PM

Quote:Original post by SyntaxError Line21
ok, if the creators of "Bioshock" or "Crysis" Did not make an engine at all for these games and went straight to making these games...

The Bioshock creators did not write their own engine, they used Unreal Engine 3 (though I suspect they modified it to suit their needs in house). An "engine" is nothing more than a collection of libraries or existing pieces of code that do something fairly generic (i.e., can be applied to more than one game). Things like rendering code or serialization can fit into this category. It is perfectly possible to just write a game and not an "engine". The only advantage to writing an engine is that when you're done with it, you'll have code that can be applied (somewhat) painlessly to new projects. Either way, writing and engine from scratch and a game from scratch would be about equal amounts of work and require a lot of the same code; it's just that in the case of the former the code is written to be stand-alone, in the latter it is written specific to the game. Not that writing either from scratch would be a very good idea, when there are some many existing libraries out there to use.

Telastyn

3,778

September 25, 2007 11:11 PM

Quote:Original post by Andakinas
I appreciate that you were honest like that though.

Thanks, and I'm sorry for perhaps poorly articulating my advice.

Quote:
You just feel that I'm like the majority of these people, who are oblivious to what goes into it, and lazy.

Not at all. I merely think you inexperienced. Judging the difficulty of something is difficult without experience in or around it. Judging the time required to complete a project is difficult even with experience in it.

But anyways, best of luck in your endeavor.

-- Tangent Developer Journal - Delegates - Part 2

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