Bioware article on software Development

[ninjonxb]

"In 2005 BioWare secured capital from the private equity fund Elevation Partners to establish a new studio dedicated to creating a full-fledged MMO."

"BioWare reached out to LucasArts in 2006 with the idea of collaborating again, this time on a rich, story-driven MMO set in the Old Republic era."

Quotes from "The Art And Making Of STAR WARS: The Old Republic".

 

I stand corrected on when they settled on Star Wars . Thanks for the info (i will admit, Never really looked into it only saw a few articles on that)

[Kubernetic]

Moving to a new game engine is just too time-intensive and resource-intensive for anyone to manage on a game that has a limited existence.

 

I'm not sure how long BioWare plans on running SWTOR, but if they planned on something like a 7-8 year life cycle, it would really be a mess to try to switch everything over. What's more, the time spent shifting from one engine to the other would end up with A COMPLETE FREEZE ON ALL NEW CONTENT DEVELOPMENT, most likely for a period of 2-3 YEARS.

 

With all of the complaining about lack of new content coming out, very few players would stand for this.

 

With projects on a much larger timeline, such as Entropia Universe, it makes sense. A project which began in 1998 and came to fruition somewhere around 2001-2003, MindArk has no intention of letting the game go down. And as such, back in the 2007-2008 timeframe, they did just that, switching everything in the game over from the Gamebryo engine (I believe is what it was) to CryEngine 2.

 

If I'm not mistaken, almost everything had to be remodeled in the new engine. What's more, all of the old systems had to be rebuilt in the new CryEngine environment. This took about 2.5 years worth of time, and people were EXTREMELY impatient during that time. Many players fled the game. By the time the new engine came online, there were some seriously hideous bugs that were screwing all kinds of things up, and it took them a few months just to get the new engine stable.

 

What's more, several of the most profitable systems for some players, such as Animal Training, Makeup Masks and Tattoo creation, and so forth were completely LEFT OUT of the game, becuase they didn't have enough time to add them in. Some of those systems literally took another 3-4 years before they were added back into the game.

 

There was nothing magical about the people who created the Hero Engine. Decent software developers who are worth their salt and know what they're doing can take existing engines and modify them, even as BioWare has done. And there's no reason to believe that BioWare can't do some phenomenal things with the engine, perhaps even some that the Hero creators never envisioned. To suggest that because BioWare edited the engine and forked it that it will never work and will always be substandard is just ridiculous.

 

And the expectation of switching engines really is ridiculous as well. The most important reason is that none of the existing players want to wait around for 4 years for them to fix a new engine, if it could even be accomplished in that time.

 

Sorry, I just don't think it's going to happen. Nor does it really need to.

[Logisitcs]

There was nothing magical about the people who created the Hero Engine. Decent software developers who are worth their salt and know what they're doing can take existing engines and modify them, even as BioWare has done. And there's no reason to believe that BioWare can't do some phenomenal things with the engine, perhaps even some that the Hero creators never envisioned. To suggest that because BioWare edited the engine and forked it that it will never work and will always be substandard is just ridiculous.

 

 

The naivety in this paragraph just made me laugh

 

Ilum open-world PvP would love to have a word with you, as would chat bubbles, hood toggle, ability delay and the 25 quest limit. All of those are hampered by the current engine; and a year has passed and BW still hasn't addressed or fixed them completely. Phenomenal my right butt cheek, more like inept

[Kynesis]

I don't have intimate knowledge of the SWTOR UI, but I'm guessing it is probably written in Flash, like LoL.

 

As far as the core code -- that is definitely written in C++.

 

There are likely extensions used through plugins but most UI work in the Hero engine is done with HSL.

http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/GUI_FAQ

 

Python is a great language but isn't suitable for use in creating a UI in a program like TOR, Flash... no, just no. If anything, the most likely contender would be LUA (and BW may well have adapted their HeroEngine to use LUA) but as noted, Hero is built from the ground up to use it's own scripting language.

 

As for in-depth information from BW about how they work, the most relevant example I know of is on Gamasutra.

It's not precisely what you're after of course and being from a management person, it's nearly entirely stock-standard management-speak.

 

This on the other hand from DarthHater is probably much more inline with what you're after.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Kynesis

[Andryah]

The naivety in this paragraph just made me laugh

 

Ah yes.. the usual Irony from you.

 

Ilum open-world PvP would love to have a word with you, as would chat bubbles, hood toggle, ability delay and the 25 quest limit. All of those are hampered by the current engine; and a year has passed and BW still hasn't addressed or fixed them completely. Phenomenal my right butt cheek, more like inept

 

Go back and read what Kub said. It's worth your time, though your bias probably prevents you from doing so. An engine with performance challenges today =/= an engine with performance problems one, two, three years out. Optimizations, code changes, changes in discipline in how you use the engine all contribute to improvement over time. You act like there have been no performance improvements since launch at all.

 

Further, at least half of the problems with Ilum were bad design decisions with the planet. All engines have limitations in them and a design team is required to work within them. They did not.. and they failed. So they pulled the content for redesign. They even openly amitted their mistake.

 

Not that you actually have any working knowledge about the hero engine to be making perjorative statements about what Kub shared.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Andryah

[Shingara]

Ah yes.. the usual Irony from you.

 

 

 

Go back and read what Kub said. It's worth your time, though your bias probably prevents you from doing so. An engine with performance challenges today =/= an engine with performance problems one, two, three years out. Optimizations, code changes, changes in discipline in how you use the engine all contribute to improvement over time. You act like there have been no performance improvements since launch at all.

 

Further, at least half of the problems with Ilum were bad design decisions with the planet. All engines have limitations in them and a design team is required to work within them. They did not.. and they failed. So they pulled the content for redesign. They even openly amitted their mistake.

 

Not that you actually have any working knowledge about the hero engine to be making perjorative statements about what Kub shared.

 

Im going from the loose bits i heard from ohlen at gdc, i would love to see a vid of the whole thing instead of second hand speak of it but meh. Thats why i was and still am so curious about this on frostbite or another ea inhouse engine even though i have a gut feeling frostbite could do it.

 

they hit problems nearly straight away, this engine couldnt render lots of people or it would crash, it couldnt do speach bubbles because it constructs them as physical objects in space thus causing lag through mass rendering. This engine cannot handle more then 25 quests because well simply it cant. the list goes on.

 

I can see this game lasting way more then a decade. swg would still have been trundling along if it wasnt shut down by license removal. I dont see the license for this being removed now disney hold the rights. I can see them wanting to add alot more to this game and go alot deeper into the lore.

 

I just dont see how much more they can sqwess out of this engine though when they have the limitations they are hitting right now and they ones they are still trying to get over from alpha. I dont think it would require the stopping of development of the game as is if they did do it but who knows what ea will put into this game to make it more profitable.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Shingara

[Kynesis]

I'm glad to hear that they do actually use Python and LUA

 

Rob works on EVE Online now but there are some interesting insights in this GDC interview.

 

The ideas in his blog seem to me to be based greatly on his experience with TOR

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/author/rob-galanakis/

 

Link to the animation software mentioned Morpheme wiki

Morphene product info

 

... which in turn mentions Clumsy Ninja - I remember watching the demo during an Apple Keynote and being well impressed. Sadly it seems it still hasn't been released. Still worth a look though.

 

.. so yeah, you can absolutely find glimpses of insight into the kinds of things you're looking for.

[GillianS]

some people come in here assuming they know what they're talking about

 

a codebase that probably has more than TRILLIONS of lines of code.

 

loled^

 

i wonder how long it would take this thing to compile trillions of lines of C/++

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(supercomputer)

couple months?

Edited April 26, 2013 by GillianS

[TieJu]

To make it clear what they use for the UI: scaleform / flash ( its listed here http://gameware.autodesk.com/usage/games/?show=scaleform ).

[Hotspur]

I have seen many posts from people complaining about X or Y but not really understanding any basics of Software Development. Even those that do understand Software Development, not understanding how Bioware does it.

 

I would love to see some sort of write up from Bioware about how they do Software Development.

 

I don't mean what language, or what tools they use. Basic information. Like Sprint Length. How sprints affect patch deployment.

Information about how Bioware does QA testing. The average time from start to completion for some feature. Just random stuff like that that MAY help get people off Bioware's back. [emphasis added]

 

QA blog published by Gamasutra; written by Tulay Tetiker McNally, a Bioware QA director:

QA BLOG

 

Hope that link is helpful (I'm not sure how related to Bioware Austin the blog might be).

Edited April 26, 2013 by Hotspur

[LeonBraun]

I have seen many posts from people complaining about X or Y but not really understanding any basics of Software Development. Even those that do understand Software Development, not understanding how Bioware does it.

 

I would love to see some sort of write up from Bioware about how they do Software Development.

 

I don't mean what language, or what tools they use. Basic information. Like Sprint Length. How sprints affect patch deployment.

Information about how Bioware does QA testing. The average time from start to completion for some feature. Just random stuff like that that MAY help get people off Bioware's back.

 

Honestly, if the devs of the game really cared about the player base, they would make some effort to show it. Keeping the players in the dark and uninvolved in the process clearly shows they care mainly about the money and not the community involved.

 

AKA: they will get out of a relationship what they make an effort to put into it.

[Kubernetic]

The naivety in this paragraph just made me laugh

 

Ilum open-world PvP would love to have a word with you, as would chat bubbles, hood toggle, ability delay and the 25 quest limit. All of those are hampered by the current engine; and a year has passed and BW still hasn't addressed or fixed them completely. Phenomenal my right butt cheek, more like inept

 

The current state will not be its permanent state.

 

The naiveté is yours, if you want my opinion.