If you haven't seen it already, take a look.
Herocloud
The same engine being used for Star Wars: The Old Republic is going indie.
Even though they have yet to have a game launched with the engine, it looks pretty solid.
I would think many indie developers would be dropping bricks right about now.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thoughts on Herocloud?
Quote:Original post by Butabee
I would think many indie developers would be dropping bricks right about now.
Indie and other small teams grow organically. They focus on the niche specialties each individual has, and maximize those. The cost of learning a complete vendor locked vertical stack is often detrimental in this setting, since it polarizes the available talent (similar to Java vs. .Net shops and Ruby vs. Python, ...). And this type of fashion statements matter a lot when on shoestring budget.
An indie team also do not have the capacity to produce AAA-grade product such engine implies, and anything less will result in sub-par result.
Teams that secure funding that can afford to not only hire arbitrary talent, but also afford to purchase any cost beneficial technology along with needed oversight and management.
In this regard, this release has no impact. It's probably more of a response to Unreal, which definitely does not have the "they have yet to have a game launched" problem.
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Has no impact? With all the posts I see about people wanting to make an MMO, I would think this would have a considerably large impact.
I think we'll have to wait a bit though and see how those who jump the gun do with the engine.
Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
I think we'll have to wait a bit though and see how those who jump the gun do with the engine.
Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
Quote:Original post by Butabee
Has no impact? With all the posts I see about people wanting to make an MMO, I would think this would have a considerably large impact.
I think we'll have to wait a bit though and see how those who jump the gun do with the engine.
Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
Most people wanting to make an MMO don't have $5000 to license a game engine. Or an extra $2000 a year after the first year to maintain hosting and updates. Or an extra $1000 for a week training course per person that might need it, or an extra $95 an hour for technical support.
It looks good for start up companies who have funding not so much for Joe the high school student who wants to blow the world away with his "better than world of warcraft" MMO.
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Quote:Original post by ExcessNeoQuote:Original post by Butabee
Has no impact? With all the posts I see about people wanting to make an MMO, I would think this would have a considerably large impact.
I think we'll have to wait a bit though and see how those who jump the gun do with the engine.
Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
Most people wanting to make an MMO don't have $5000 to license a game engine. Or an extra $2000 a year after the first year to maintain hosting and updates. Or an extra $1000 for a week training course per person that might need it, or an extra $95 an hour for technical support.
It looks good for start up companies who have funding not so much for Joe the high school student who wants to blow the world away with his "better than world of warcraft" MMO.
Of coarse it's not viable for the lone hobbyist/micro indie, but if one of those guys wanted to they could find a team who all wanted to chip in to make a game. The 5000 fee becomes 200 per person of the 25 available seats, and the 2000 becomes 80.
Quote:Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
Mortal Online, Vanguard: SOH, DC Universe Online, Blade and Soul, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and many more.
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Quote:Original post by AntheusQuote:Also, unreal is a whole other animal, a FPS engine isn't exactly a MMO engine.
Mortal Online, Vanguard: SOH, DC Universe Online, Blade and Soul, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and many more.
Regardless, Unreal is not a native MMO engine. It requires heavy modification to use it as such.
You also don't get the source code with the indie version so it's very unlikely anyone could make a MMO with the indie license.
Quote:Original post by Butabee
Regardless, Unreal is not a native MMO engine. It requires heavy modification to use it as such.
And PHP is a crappy language that can only be used to build trivial web sites. It's what HTML+JS offers to user that matters, not how it's generated.
Quote:You also don't get the source code with the indie version so it's very unlikely anyone could make a MMO with the indie license.
It's impossible to build a 3D AAA-grade MMO as an indie. The upfront cost is simply too high given the competition, and tools like UE or other similar ones cannot grow organically. When working with this type of engine, one cannot start with stick figures, then progress to simply polygons and use metrics to iterate into what works. It's either full-feature from day one or bust. Even big studios fell into this trap, trying to launch with content for 20 levels out of 50, and hoping to catch up.
Meanwhile, Farmville, Habbo and similar started small, saw what floats and what doesn't, killed fast and iterated furiously. Same for other kinds of start ups.
UE and similar are Big Iron. They work since they are standardized, so one can quickly scale to 10*X new hires if needed, since those have been trained externally and can jump in instantly into existing scaffolding and management structures.
Unfortunately, same goes for big names, who do exactly the same, but with $1 billion budget and much more efficiently.
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Quote:Original post by AntheusQuote:Original post by Butabee
Regardless, Unreal is not a native MMO engine. It requires heavy modification to use it as such.
And PHP is a crappy language that can only be used to build trivial web sites. It's what HTML+JS offers to user that matters, not how it's generated.Quote:You also don't get the source code with the indie version so it's very unlikely anyone could make a MMO with the indie license.
It's impossible to build a 3D AAA-grade MMO as an indie. The upfront cost is simply too high given the competition, and tools like UE or other similar ones cannot grow organically. When working with this type of engine, one cannot start with stick figures, then progress to simply polygons and use metrics to iterate into what works. It's either full-feature from day one or bust. Even big studios fell into this trap, trying to launch with content for 20 levels out of 50, and hoping to catch up.
Meanwhile, Farmville, Habbo and similar started small, saw what floats and what doesn't, killed fast and iterated furiously. Same for other kinds of start ups.
UE and similar are Big Iron. They work since they are standardized, so one can quickly scale to 10*X new hires if needed, since those have been trained externally and can jump in instantly into existing scaffolding and management structures.
Unfortunately, same goes for big names, who do exactly the same, but with $1 billion budget and much more efficiently.
Who said anything about making AAA MMOs? Being able to produce any MMO at all for an indie is an amazing feat, granted with the Hero Engine most of the work is already done for you, that's what makes it a great thing. And just why is it necessary to grow organically. If you want to grow organically you might as well start out coding without graphics APIs and write an entire engine from scratch. Tools are made for a reason, and that's to make things easier, and that's what these engines are.
If you want to build something, you want the best tool for the job. Choosing the UDK for a MMO is like choosing a screwdriver to hammer in a nail. While you might get the nail in after awhile, it would have been much easier using a hammer. And using no tool at all is just a bad move.
UDK can be used for MMOs pretty easily if you have the budget for Atlas which is the MMO Framework for UDK. In order to get Atlas however you need the money for the Commercial license for UDK plus the money for the Commercial license for Atlas. However Atlas like BigWorld or Hero offers the full Server, Client, and Modified version of the UDK tools thats built for large scale worlds like those found in MMOs.
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