Hero Engine: why?

[Blegvad]

I love people that make ridiculous claims about people making ridiculous claims that aren't actually ridiculous because they have facts to back it up.

 

TY for the much needed laugh.

[LeMartin]

Engines and Frameworks, they are nice if they allow you to do exactly what you want or need, but as soon as you step out of this zone, you start investing a lot of time in adapting them to your needs or your needs to them.

 

But hey, it's not like we could turn back time and make this decision go away, so lets just hope for the best. As SW:ToR is quite popular (and the fact that it uses the HeroEngine) I bet the people at HeroEngine-development-company are doing anything to fit their engine to BioWares needs, just give it time.

 

Wait, there was a Beta, right, so how comes that there are still that many quirks to be worked out?

 

Btw, I formed my opinion regarding HeroEngine the moment I took a deeper look into the asset files, they make MPQ and especially DBC files downright sexy.

Edited January 5, 2012 by LeMartin

[LoL-K-Noob]

Champions Online uses the engine, I dont see anything wrong with it.

[wrmrstacrdwower]

Engines and Frameworks, they are nice if they allow you to do exactly what you want or need, but as soon as you step out of this zone, you start investing a lot of time in adapting them to your needs or your needs to them.

 

But hey, it's not like we could turn back time and make this decision go away, so lets just hope for the best. As SW:ToR is quite populate (and the fact that it uses the HeroEngine) I bet the people at HeroEngine-development-company are doing anything to fit their engine to BioWares needs, just give it time.

 

Wait, there was a Beta, right, so how comes that there are still that many quirks to be worked out?

 

Btw, I formed my opinion regarding HeroEngine the moment I took a deeper look into the asset files, they make MPQ and especially DBC files downright sexy.

Why would they Bioware has either A: Already purchased the engine for use or B: has rights to use the engine.

 

Hero has no reason to do anything with the engine for Bioware.

[HeroXx]

Why would they Bioware has either A: Already purchased the engine for use or B: has rights to use the engine.

 

Hero has no reason to do anything with the engine for Bioware.

 

If TOR flops that will be a disaster added to HeroEngine's portfolio, I think the poster you are quoting is saying they are probably being rather accommodating to Bioware to ensure a smooth development.

Edited January 5, 2012 by HeroXx

[Talimar]

One year theoretical experience > no experience at all.

 

Actually anyone with any experience in life knows that someone with a little knowledge is far more dangerous than someone with no knowledge.

[LeMartin]

Because I hope for the best, call me an optimist, I believe that the HeroEngine development company is really concerned about the press and the success of this game, as it would be a great thing to advertise with, if SW:ToR actually becomes a success.

 

If not, the HeroEngine may very well be filed under great potential but poor whatsoever.

[DarthSiricus]

Ok, caught me. I edited it to add it to the guys post above, I knew for a while that they have single thread.

 

I should have put a space, made it different.

 

Does it mean its a bad engine because of that? nope.

 

Also, just good from graphics standpoint? Call me out about a simple error in my wording.

 

So tell me what's so great about it then?

 

I'm a big fan of Frostbite 2.0 and Unreal Engine 3. I'm a hardware guy, and those engines make full use of what I've got. I doubt you'll impress me, as from a hardware standpoint, this game fails to deliver.

[Proto]

If TOR flops that will be a disaster added to HeroEngine's portfolio, I think the poster you are quoting is saying they are probably being rather accommodating to Bioware to ensure a smooth development.

 

Actually, if TOR flops it'll be the last subscription based mmo of this size you'll probably ever see. No one will fund them anymore. If a franchise like Star Wars and a developer like BioWare can flop so hard then who besides Blizzard will be able to make another major MMO happen?

Edited January 5, 2012 by Proto

[knatx]

Champions Online uses the engine, I dont see anything wrong with it.

I am pretty sure that uses Cryptics in house engine. If they used the Hero engine I think the game would be a tad bit better than what it is.

[LoL-K-Noob]

I am pretty sure that uses Cryptics in house engine. If they used the Hero engine I think the game would be a tad bit better than what it is.

 

Ya your right, maybe the Hero games logo made me think the engine was the same.

[knatx]

Actually, if TOR flops it'll be the last subscription based mmo of this size you'll probably ever see. No one will fund them anymore. If a franchise like Star Wars and a developer like BioWare can flop so hard then who besides Blizzard will be able to make another major MMO happen?

Betthesda

Rockstar/Take Two

Sony

Nintendo

Microsoft

Valve

 

All those companies and I am sure others that I didn't think from the top of my head can make a major mmo happen. Lets not forget THQ and them making Warhammer 40k Dark Millennium Online. There is no doubt the p2p model is dying, but its never going to totally die off as there will be mmo 5 years from now commanding a sub.

[Offended]

WoW uses a modified version of the Warcraft 3 engine, so it's basically all created in-house.

 

Wow started out as a WC3 engine, created 100% by blizzard, but they created a whole new engine from scratch before the first public Alpha push (push #4, april 2003). A friend of mine was lucky enough to be part of that alpha test. This was nearly a year earlier than what they have on wowwiki.

 

Some where around the beginning of 2004, when they started the full beta, they had scrapped their WC3 based engine and had their own 100% MMO engine that they continue to use today.

 

Pretty sure he still has all of the downloaded clients on his backup disks.

[knatx]

Actually, if TOR flops it'll be the last subscription based mmo of this size you'll probably ever see. No one will fund them anymore. If a franchise like Star Wars and a developer like BioWare can flop so hard then who besides Blizzard will be able to make another major MMO happen?

It won't be the last mmo to use it as the Warhammer 40k mmo I bet will be P2P, but as far as the industry standard goes it will shift to some sort of f2p model.

[bbbmmmlll]

These guys aren't stupid. How can you say anything about their choice when YOU WEREN'T THERE. This engine is highly respected in the industry even if its NEW. When you want to make a great game you have to take risks and go down a path that isn't beaten.

 

The hero engine + whatever Bioware did to it is going to have bugs. Can you imagine coding and programming all the scripts, pieces, triggers, models, and EVERYTHING that goes into this?

 

This is a relatively new engine and I am glad they didn't take the quick and cheap route and go with a older, more tested engine.

 

I would rather see risks than mediocrity.

 

Oh, I'm in software development too. SO I know a think or two about the industry.

 

People and companies make multi million dollar mistakes all the time. It doesn't take special inside information to see these mistakes. Take Netflix's recent price changes, Google Wave or the classic New Coke launch. Or even the SWG NGE. These are smart people and smart companies making mistakes. I don't need to be there: an unproven and old game engine from a tiny company isn't a good choice for a $100m+ MMO. This isn't rocket science, this is project management 101. We do have the benefit of looking at the game engine market from a 2012 perspective and it looked different in 2008 when they selected their engine. But given what HeroEngine hasn't done it's hard to argue that BW made a good decision.

 

I'm not seeing where this engine has any respect. It's all hype and the only hype is because BW chose them and not because of anything about the engine itself. It hasn't had a single successful game launched using it. You earn respect in this industry. It doesn't come from sales literature or feature lists. Gamebryo has a long list(300+) of successful games. CryEngine was used by Aion and guess what, it supports DX10 and DX11 unlike HeroEngine. Even BigWorlds has a bunch of game launches behind it. BTW, HeroEngine isn't new. It was announced back in 2006. Five years without a successful product.

 

I can also imagine the work needed to make the game as I've actually worked with game engines. I've modified them, wrote scripts for game logic and build game environments. Mostly low end engines or engines developed in-house. Most engines come with tool sets. The quality varies greatly. Some things like models and game logic you're going to need to make no matter what. With models you use something like 3d Studio MAX and with scripts just use your favorite editor. Even with the best tools any game and especially an MMO are a lot of work.

 

Again this isn't a new engine it's an old one. You see it with the lack of multi-core support and lack of DX10/DX11 support.

 

I think you're confused about the 'quick and easy' route. HeroEngine is the 'quick and easy' route. A proven engine is more money and more work. Take for example, CryEngine 3, which is from early 2009 (and announced about three months after BW chose HeroEngine), has more features and over 20 online games have licensed it. The quality of that engine blows HeroEngine away.

 

I'm not sure why you defend their engine choice. Graphically SWtOR isn't anything special and we're already seeing issues with FPS and action response times. I'm sure the BW and HeroEngine devs will fix or improve the issues over time, but to me it's a problem that has kept me from playing the game and is very likely going to result is lost subscriptions.

 

Just to be clear I want SWtOR to be the best MMO ever and I like the game itself. I just think they made a bad decision and their success will be more of a challenge because of it. The game had the largest MMO launch ever and is mostly playable so it's not a failure. You make a bad decision and you deal with it the best you can.

[darthdoll]

So tell me what's so great about it then?

 

I'm a big fan of Frostbite 2.0 and Unreal Engine 3. I'm a hardware guy, and those engines make full use of what I've got. I doubt you'll impress me, as from a hardware standpoint, this game fails to deliver.

 

Being a developer, I use UT3 all the time.

 

Has all the same interface etc.

 

Looking at the features of the engine:

 

Real time editing with others

Online database

 

etc. I think its great because I make models, I use engines all the time.

 

So, from a hardware point, once they put in muti threading then its the same and youll love it correct? Not much difference with hardware between ut3 and hero.

[Offended]

I think the general issue people are raising is, in most cases Bioware are restricted in what they can do with this game because they haven't made the engine themselves.

 

World of Warcraft uses a modified version of an existing Blizzard engine so they know the limitation and the ins and outs of it.

 

When Blizzard ran in to a limitation with their game engine, they went to work removing it. Character Transfers were among the first of the limitations to be removed from the game and there have been dozens since then.

[Satpolpp]

So in a nutshell, this all comes down to misallocated resources then. I dont mind losing the voice acting if they can lease Blizz's engine for astronomical amounts of money.

[Anagnostis]

I honestly have no idea how to really program or code anything. But I do know it takes a really long time to build an engine. Therefore it would take a less, but otherwise long time to tweak the one we currently have.

[Excedrin]

It's good from a graphical standpoint, I mean the terrain in this game is awesome, but really? It doesn't have multithreading, buddy. A chimpanzee could quickly google that. http://community.heroengine.com/forums/index.php/topic,889.msg4120.html#msg4120

 

I love people that make ridiculous claims about people making ridiculous claims that aren't actually ridiculous because they have facts to back it up.

 

Best Post in the Thread award

Edited January 5, 2012 by Excedrin

[daemian]

PCGH: Did you integrate multi-core support into the engine / your game and what Fps benefit can we expect if we take a Quad-Core-CPU instead of a Dual-Core-CPU? Will there be even a performance boost for AMDs X6 Hexa-Core-CPUs?

 

Bioware: The Old Republic greatly takes advantage of multi-core. Multi-core both improves frame rate and smoothness by offloading work to the extra cores such as disk IO, rendering or audio.

 

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,767634/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Bioware-considering-Direct-X-11-in-the-future/News/

Edited January 5, 2012 by daemian

[cdstephen]

You do realize they recoded a lot of the hero engine so it's very different from the original right?

[JetBlackx]

I use to play a little game called America's Army. It was free, and many said used as a recruitment tool by the Army to get people to join.

 

Me? I think it was just some fun team-based FPS.

 

Anywho, for a long while they used an engine that was kinda outdated and crappy. I loved it, and miss it, cause I refuse to play on their new version.

 

But the game had ran for about 7 years or so... and they decided to change the engine. Rebuilt the game from the ground up, fixed everything people complained about and made things all awesome-y.

 

Perhaps, if limitations are met within SWTOR down the road, they'll simply rebuild it from the ground up, with a better, or perhaps custom-made engine built just for SWTOR. If SWTOR follows the footsteps of WoW, they'll be several hundreds of millions of dollars richer by then, and much, much larger.

[Arkerus]

People and companies make multi million dollar mistakes all the time. It doesn't take special inside information to see these mistakes. Take Netflix's recent price changes, Google Wave or the classic New Coke launch. Or even the SWG NGE. These are smart people and smart companies making mistakes. I don't need to be there: an unproven and old game engine from a tiny company isn't a good choice for a $100m+ MMO. This isn't rocket science, this is project management 101. We do have the benefit of looking at the game engine market from a 2012 perspective and it looked different in 2008 when they selected their engine. But given what HeroEngine hasn't done it's hard to argue that BW made a good decision.

 

I'm not seeing where this engine has any respect. It's all hype and the only hype is because BW chose them and not because of anything about the engine itself. It hasn't had a single successful game launched using it. You earn respect in this industry. It doesn't come from sales literature or feature lists. Gamebryo has a long list(300+) of successful games. CryEngine was used by Aion and guess what, it supports DX10 and DX11 unlike HeroEngine. Even BigWorlds has a bunch of game launches behind it. BTW, HeroEngine isn't new. It was announced back in 2006. Five years without a successful product.

 

I can also imagine the work needed to make the game as I've actually worked with game engines. I've modified them, wrote scripts for game logic and build game environments. Mostly low end engines or engines developed in-house. Most engines come with tool sets. The quality varies greatly. Some things like models and game logic you're going to need to make no matter what. With models you use something like 3d Studio MAX and with scripts just use your favorite editor. Even with the best tools any game and especially an MMO are a lot of work.

 

Again this isn't a new engine it's an old one. You see it with the lack of multi-core support and lack of DX10/DX11 support.

 

I think you're confused about the 'quick and easy' route. HeroEngine is the 'quick and easy' route. A proven engine is more money and more work. Take for example, CryEngine 3, which is from early 2009 (and announced about three months after BW chose HeroEngine), has more features and over 20 online games have licensed it. The quality of that engine blows HeroEngine away.

 

I'm not sure why you defend their engine choice. Graphically SWtOR isn't anything special and we're already seeing issues with FPS and action response times. I'm sure the BW and HeroEngine devs will fix or improve the issues over time, but to me it's a problem that has kept me from playing the game and is very likely going to result is lost subscriptions.

 

Just to be clear I want SWtOR to be the best MMO ever and I like the game itself. I just think they made a bad decision and their success will be more of a challenge because of it. The game had the largest MMO launch ever and is mostly playable so it's not a failure. You make a bad decision and you deal with it the best you can.

 

I work for one of the biggest corporations in the world. I know what goes on in board rooms. Don't try to school me on "million dollar mistakes". This is by no means a sure thing but I don't think the actual hero engine is their biggest concern. Their development may be, but a new engine is going to have issues no matter what. And yes, it is relatively new. Well...this release is. They had previous versions for demo. This engine was built and designed for MMOs specifically. It has an entire toolset dedicated this type of platform.

 

You weren't there. You don't understand what went on behind closed doors.

 

Did you ever stop to think for one moment that the reason they chose the hero engine was because it met their list of requirements? Their CTQs perhaps? (If you know project management you know what I am talking about.) What if half the stuff they wanted to do couldn't be built with other engines? What if building a NEW engine was going to cost another 25 million?

 

 

You have every right to criticize the bugs in the game but since you weren't on the team that chose the hero engine you have no idea why. If you knew why, then maybe your argument would have some merit. But you weren't.

 

Oh and for the record, graphically this engine is great. No one can run the full extent of the engine without some serious power, but yes graphically is very good.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Arkerus

[Ankido]

Sadly, the problems this game faces is because of the engine. Blizzard did work in-house and use an Enhanced Warcraft engine. Games are not just about graphics but mainly about game play. No matter how much you knock on WoW, that game literally plays more smooth than any game I've ever come across. You add a crap load of mods and eat up all the memory you get SWTOR. Imagine if TOR had addons? OH GAWD, GAME OVER!!!!