Licensing gaming engine OR write new one

[mr.g-c 6]

Hi i just want to ask you what you think....

Licensing a engine like the ones from ARMA2 or write a new one from scratch...?

- What fits all under the term of "the engine" ?

- How much work could it be to write a new one like the one we will see in ARMA2?

Let us discuss a bit about it, because i have a idea....

Regards, Christian

[Balschoiw 0]

Writing a complete and crossplattform compatible engine is something companies do and it takes them years.

There are free engines like Crystalspace

but you have to know more than basic programming to get yourself an output with such engines.

There are some mid and low - priced engines that come with a more user-friendly middleware and toolsets. Still , you´ll have to know C++ for most of them.

Torque engine

I´ve done some VR projects with Quest 3D

as it has a graphic interface and is relatively easy to learn

and use and supports modern hardware and input methods.

If you want to learn more about engines check the Wiki page on game engines

[MehMan 0]

Quote[/b] ]- How much work could it be to write a new one like the one we will see in ARMA2?

Unless you have years of expirience in rendering huge virutal landscapes, complex AI calculations and 3d it's going to take you at least 8 years to make an engine that would come close to the ArmA/ArmAII.

I'll jump to a conclusion here, I think I'm allowed to, seeing how your attitude to BIS so far has been mostly derogatorive, and I'll say no, you won't be able to make an engine that comes close to the complexity in a timespan that would keep anybody interested. Should you make it your goal and keep it your goal for long enough, I think you'd beat Duke Nukem.

Unless you have a team of 50 people who are willing to work for up to and over 12 hours a day and an enormous budget I wouldn't expect to see any engine coming close to the ArmA one in less than a decade.

If that's not your idea, then just call me an asshole.

[Sennacherib 0]

Writing a complete and crossplattform compatible engine is something companies do and it takes them years.

There are free engines like Crystalspace

but you have to know more than basic programming to get yourself an output with such engines.

There are some mid and low - priced engines that come with a more user-friendly middleware and toolsets. Still , you´ll have to know C++ for most of them.

Torque engine

I´ve done some VR projects with Quest 3D

as it has a graphic interface and is relatively easy to learn

and use and supports modern hardware and input methods.

If you want to learn more about engines check the Wiki page on game engines

ogre 3D is a good engine too. but there are a lot of engines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

or

http://www.devmaster.net/

delta 3D is an engine made by the US army, which can be used like the ofp engine. but delta 3D is modern (dx 9)

[RN Malboeuf 12]

Quote[/b] ]Let us discuss a bit about it, because i have a idea....

let's discuss the idea first

Arma engine is far not the best available, in fact it's outdated nowadays. Maybe still fits perfectly for military training but for a game there're better solutions. If you want to create a full scale game similiar to ofp - you'll fail anyway.

If you want a mod - i recommend you to look at Crytek Engine. Yeh, i know Crysis is fictius FPS, but engine itself is capable of anything. with lots more features and documatation available.

[sickboy 13]

sry, this was kinda off-topic / spammish, plz ignore/delete ;-)

[mr.g-c 6]

Well, i had a discussion at work with a guy and we discussed about community driven improvements of games, such as "mods and addons" and so on... Then he told me about a new role play game which is in development and which should be the most impressive and complex one when it comes out.... The special things about this RPG are:

- It will be free (eventually there will be decent ads inside the game)

- It is completely Programmed by a community They really do it in their free time.

To compensate the work-power a team of full-time workers, they have over 600! people working on it currently - with a upward tendency.

I say it could also be possible to realize something like a Arma comparable game with such a idea.

Now the important question is whether to license a engine or to write a complete new one. Both have pros and cons... for licensing you then either have to sell the final product or make money through advertising (or both).

What do you think?

Regards, Christian

[RN Malboeuf 12]

Quote[/b] ]What do you think?

i think you'll fail development by dozens of people that are poorly connected is very inefficient. Wonna game - grab an office and gather your men

[Dwarden 1125]

all is down to cost and time

if you got time and then $ to pay these developers to do the engine

(or some insane genius) ...

You write engine from scratch ...

else You just license engine from Epic, ID, Crytek or similar

(if You got 100s K to millions USD)

otherwise You look for some free or cheap ones

this list is just top of iceberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]What do you think?

i think you'll fail development by dozens of people that are poorly connected is very inefficient. Wonna game - grab an office and gather your men

No, firstly i never said i will.... i have really other business things at going currently.... but its a idea and i think it has future (there are other known software companies who will bring out complete "free" games in the future financed by ads)

But it won't fail because of the reason you said (poorly connected) - the RPG proves the opposite and there are more then enough people out there(mod and addon-makers mainly) who would gladly help to develop a new game rather than a mod/addon.

Quote[/b] ]else You just license engine from Epic, ID, Crytek or similar

(if You got 100s K to millions USD)

I wonder how much BIS want to have for their engine at a stage when arma2 comes out and how much the license taker is able to rewrite it...

But to gather money is not a real problem for a start-up if you have a good business-plan with revenue-points.

Still just a idea.....

[RN Malboeuf 12]

Quote[/b] ] but its a idea and i think it has future (there are other known software companies who will bring out complete "free" games in the future financed by ads)

_most_ of on-line based rpg games are free nowadays. instead player pays for server connection, perks etc. And on-line ads are in games for quite a long time

Quote[/b] ]I wonder how much BIS want to have for their engine

contact them. Nobody else will tell you if it's possible at all. But if you want to create one more ofp clone on this engine... i guess you'll fail.

Quote[/b] ]But it won't fail because of the reason you said (poorly connected) - the RPG proves the opposite and there are more then enough people out there(mod and addon-makers mainly) who would gladly help to develop a new game rather than a mod/addon.

freelancers are common pratice in game industry, but core team always setas in one office, working together.

You may also find a lot of game development sites on te web where you'll get better answers

Quote[/b] ]But to gather money is not a real problem for a start-up if you have a good business-plan with revenue-points.

yeh, it's interesting to know how good QG was sold for ex. )

[mr.g-c 6]

_most_ of on-line based rpg games are free nowadays. instead player pays for server connection, perks etc. And on-line ads are in games for quite a long time

Believe me i know this

But not in a shooter/tactical first-person game - thats something more-or-less new...

Quote[/b] ]..But if you want to create one more ofp clone on this engine... i guess you'll fail.

No, not if it either remains free completely or just cost around 10 dollars/copy. Also if you build it not like YOU want it to be (like BIS is doing), but rather build the game like the community wants it to be (with many many polls), i bet something like this would be successful (not from a fincial point-of-view).

Quote[/b] ]..but core team always seats in one office, working together.

Normally yes, but through the modern ways of communication it could be really possible to mange it even if the persons are thousands of miles away from each other.

I'm participating with many open-source web-programs and on many of them the core-devs are split thousands of miles away from each other - still it works

I know in this discussion that you are more pessimistic about it and I'm more optimistic about that idea.... i still believe it could work... sadly i don't have much time for to manage something like that in the next months.....

But yeah i'll check out some gaming-development communities....

[RN Malboeuf 12]

Quote[/b] ]Also if you build it not like YOU want it to be (like BIS is doing), but rather build the game like the community wants it to be (with many many polls)

it will result in a lot of flaming primary of requests that are either impossible or difficult to implement. 'Crowd' is never right even though there're wise people in there.

Quote[/b] ]like BIS is doing

BIs are earning money They sold almost the same games three times (1.0 - CO - QG) and know working on Arma2 that is basicly addon too. Commercially they are geniuses

Quote[/b] ]I know in this discussion that you are more pessimistic about it and I'm more optimistic

mainly i say it's close to impossible to create quality product without steady reliable team, that are highly motivated with thier revenue  I agree there're lots of people that can and will work for free, but it's silly idea to rely on them. Unless you got a plan how to replace them if smth goes wrong.

[suma 8]

_most_ of on-line based rpg games are free nowadays. instead player pays for server connection, perks etc. And on-line ads are in games for quite a long time

Believe me i know this

But not in a shooter/tactical first-person game - thats something more-or-less new...

While open source can and does work for some products, there are few problems that may be not obvious with it:

Major and most important is "Momentum". If you want to be able to create an engine comparable to ArmA, you need to be able to put something like 20-100 man-years of highly qualified work into it. Moreover, the game is not only engine, you need to create a content for it as well, which is perhaps not that difficult, but still a huge work.

As people working in open source project probably cannot do it as a full time job (what would they live from?), if you want the engine to be developed within say 3 years, my estimate is you would need to get around 20-100 expert programmers working on it for a few years, and even much higher number of artist and designers.

With this large number of participants, you would need someone (perhaps several people) dedicated to managing and moderating the project, resolving disputes, ...

Convincing around 100-200 people to work on something in their spare time is possible, but it is very unlikely to convince them to participate in a new project, which has no background, and nobody knows a thing about it.

You might want to check how other open source projects are doing (how many active developers participate, how much of the code they are able to contribute) - like Mozilla, OpenOffice, ... and those are high profile, well known projects with huge user bases, and in case of Mozilla even some defined revenue streams.

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]Convincing around 100-200 people to work on something in their spare time is possible, but it is very unlikely to convince them to participate in a new project, which has no background, and nobody knows a thing about it.

Well yes that would be one of the biggest problems i guess.... but everything is possible if you believe in

Quote[/b] ]You might want to check how other open source projects are doing (how many active developers participate, how much of the code they are able to contribute) - like Mozilla, OpenOffice, ... and those are high profile, well known projects with huge user bases, and in case of Mozilla even some defined revenue streams.

Well they are a bit of to high profile...Mozilla foundation make huge amounts of money every year (official through donations), but ex-insider claiming they sell collected user-data(data mining) and OpenOffice is from Sun Microsystems (a multi-billion-dollar corp.)

Quote[/b] ]While open source can and does work for some products, there are few problems that may be not obvious with it:

Major and most important is "Momentum". If you want to be able to create an engine comparable to ArmA, you need to be able to put something like 20-100 man-years of highly qualified work into it. Moreover, the game is not only engine, you need to create a content for it as well, which is perhaps not that difficult, but still a huge work.

As people working in open source project probably cannot do it as a full time job (what would they live from?), if you want the engine to be developed within say 3 years, my estimate is you would need to get around 20-100 expert programmers working on it for a few years, and even much higher number of artist and designers.

Right..... so it would obviously better to license a engine which already has specific functions like your ones.

Question: Let's spin this scenario even further.... I would license the engine from you at the stage when Arma2 comes out..

What is everything included in it?

Is it possible to develop the engine further?

Is it "easy" to develop it further, or is it written that only the original inventors (you and you brother) knows really whats going on?

If parts like the stiffness of animations and walking should be changed, is this a lot of work and therefor better to write a new engine from scratch?

Best Regards, Christian

[MehMan 0]

Well yes that would be one of the biggest problems i guess.... but everything is possible if you believe in  

I wouldn't really count on that. I can believe in peace in the middle east and still I have high doubts that it's going to really happen.

I also have high doubts that you really know the complexity of a game engine such as ArmA's one. It's not as easy as you'd think. Far from it.

Quote[/b] ]Is it "easy" to develop it further, or is it written that only the original inventors (you and you brother) knows really whats going on?

IIRC Bohemia has around 50 developers, I guess that at least 10 or more are programmers. I have high doubts they'd code in a way that only them and another person would know the code, because it's also outsourced to BIA, at least the engine without patches, as far as I know. It wouldn't even make sense to code things that only you know what was going on, since you might forget what you did the next day. Besides that, with my guess of 15 programmers, you have to have the code universal, easy to understand and modify.

[baddo 0]

Maybe you should try first with a free, open-source graphics or game engine and see what you can make with it.

There are for example programming libraries which have LGPL as their license, and it is possible to use such libraries for absolutely no cost also for commercial products, as long as you can make sure that you can follow their licensing conditions (can depend also on the platform, i.e. PC or console).

You could prototype your idea by using a high-level language such as Python or Lua (scripting). Then later, if you find that your idea still looks like it is worth to develop more, you could dvelve into optimizing your program perhaps in C++.

It isn't clear if you have programming skills, so I will have to say that you should try simple C++ programming before taking on a big project using the said language. It is a very complicated programming language and it takes years to understand. And this is only about C++ and not about application programming interfaces such as WinAPI, DirectX et cetera. I would say that any programmer who hasn't programmed at least for years, and claims to understand C++, is simply put completely lost This is a word of warning to not have any illusions of rapid development.