For me, I'm convinced this is possible. If Roller Coaster Tycoon can do it, Star Trek Online can do it!
My suggestion is for the devs to read up on Unity! Mostly because that's the one I know anything about and was thinking of taking an online class to learn how to make a game using it.
For me, I'm convinced this is possible. If Roller Coaster Tycoon can do it, Star Trek Online can do it!
My suggestion is for the devs to read up on Unity! Mostly because that's the one I know anything about and was thinking of taking an online class to learn how to make a game using it.
Unity?! *gags* Till you've played a game on unity trust me, Unity is the last hunk of TRIBBLE you'd want to use. And guys it takes A LOT to come up with a whole new engine. It's basically building a brand new game from the ground up.
Unless there's a huge payoff at the end and many people open wallets, something like this won't EVER happen. Hell 2 years ago WoT promised the Havok engine upgrade and it STILL hasn't happened yet.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
They wouldn't have to throw away what we already have. Databases aren't like land, they're digital. They can be moved or copied to new servers with different software on them. They could just put the old database on a new server with a new engine so we don't lose our characters, ships, and whatnot.
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
They wouldn't have to throw away what we already have. Databases aren't like land, they're digital. They can be moved or copied to new servers with different software on them. They could just put the old database on a new server with a new engine so we don't lose our characters, ships, and whatnot.
But does the database format still make sense for the new engine, or does it except different data structures, different data types? An engine will come with its own assumptions for how things are to be done, they don't necessarily translate.
Will the adaptations to the new engine require a new database scheme? What about all those countless of game models still in the game? What does it take to translate them for the new engine to understand, what unique engine strengths or weaknesses were they designed in mind with that no longer apply? Do they have sufficient fidelity to even warrant a conversion process?
What about all the powers the game has, what kind of framework does the game engine provide, is it compatible with Cryptic's or would they need to remodel every power or reimplement their old system somehow? If the translation is easy, how many lag problems will be once again right back into the new engine, because the computational costliness of these problematic powers has not changed at all, and thus it creates the very same bottlenecks as before?
IF you need to make such fundamental changes, why not just put a "Star Trek Online 2" stamp on it and have you make new accounts so you can buy everything again?
Who is to say the new engine doesn't bring its own lag problems? Mechwarrior Online used Cryengine and had severe lag problems for a long time, and it's more like an FPS shooter so being able to be in sync between all players and the server was critical, otherwise you shoot at empty air.
How long will it take for the developers to get accustomed to the new engine and learn all its tricks, potential and pitfalls?
Heck, if your main problem is lag, first thing to try now I think should be to turn off the combat log. Enough people haveexperienced problems just from that*, and the combat log is a completely superfluous feature..
*) Not so surprising if you realize what logging will require to do - write stuff sequentially into a file. Writing something on your hard disk is several magnitudes slower than writing something to RAM. And if you don't want to corrupt the file contents, you probably need to make those calls blocking in some way. Even if in the end the hard disk is not the bottleneck but just some thread synchronization, it can slow things down...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
If you think STO is showing its age, go play DCUO.... seriously go play. STO has a ton more life in it than that.
Secondly, *IF* this were going to happen its already being worked on. More likely they'll milk this cow for another 2-4yrs before sunsetting it, possibly in favor of a STO2 with said new engine.
Or SWToR. Hell, Bioware took a BETA version of the Hero Engine, and modified it (poorly). Hell, the Hero Engine developers themselves put out a statement that SWToR SHOULD NOT be used as a gauge to the capabilities of their finalized version.
Or World of Warcraft - who's engine is going on 14 years old.
Or EVE Online who's engine is going on 16 years old.
In the end, the majority of players don't care overmuch about the age of a game engine, they care about if they find enough enjoyment from one or more aspects of the game content/mechanics to keep playing. If cutting edge graphics made or broke a game, WoW would have been running on one empty server back in 2010.
[Oh, and if you're going to counter with - well, those engines got some refactoring and upgrades over the years; remember, SO DID STO's <--- It got a graphical overhaul and Cinematics - and Cinematic tools update circa 2012.)
They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make:
They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
I wrote a method yesterday, ran the program, and it wasn't on fire! So I spent a while testing and looking for the fire. I didn't find a fire. It looks like it's working perfectly, so I figure I must still be in hell and it just hasn't kicked in yet.
Blizzard also spent 7 years and probably many many times STO's annual income trying to make WoW 2.0 and gave up in defeat.
We shouldn't allow Blizzard's failures to define the potential of Cryptic's development team. The future is bright at Cryptic. Let's keep pushing the envelope and get this done.
Yes they can upgrade the engine significantly over time and keep making things better. A new engine would mean a lot more then just better graphics and less lag though it would open the door to entirely new forms of gameplay never before used perhaps by any MMO. If they were to go this route the game would and should be redesigned from the ground up, mechanics powers etc. would not be the same. This would be good IMO but many people would likely hate it because it's different. (see skill revamp for more info)
Point is, the issues we are having now can be fixed without a new engine but a new engine could mean an amazing new game.
If you think STO is showing its age, go play DCUO.... seriously go play. STO has a ton more life in it than that.
Secondly, *IF* this were going to happen its already being worked on. More likely they'll milk this cow for another 2-4yrs before sunsetting it, possibly in favor of a STO2 with said new engine.
Or SWToR. Hell, Bioware took a BETA version of the Hero Engine, and modified it (poorly). Hell, the Hero Engine developers themselves put out a statement that SWToR SHOULD NOT be used as a gauge to the capabilities of their finalized version.
Or World of Warcraft - who's engine is going on 14 years old.
Or EVE Online who's engine is going on 16 years old.
In the end, the majority of players don't care overmuch about the age of a game engine, they care about if they find enough enjoyment from one or more aspects of the game content/mechanics to keep playing. If cutting edge graphics made or broke a game, WoW would have been running on one empty server back in 2010.
[Oh, and if you're going to counter with - well, those engines got some refactoring and upgrades over the years; remember, SO DID STO's <--- It got a graphical overhaul and Cinematics - and Cinematic tools update circa 2012.)
here's the thing, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online, recieved MASSIVE updates to their engines. STO did not, STO just recieved some minor segmented updates to their graphical engine. that's pretty much it, the cinematics tool is a secondary "plugin" of sorts. The major difference is, STO never recieved a modernization update, EVE Online did, and so did several other much smaller MMO's.
here's the thing, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online, recieved MASSIVE updates to their engines. STO did not, STO just recieved some minor segmented updates to their graphical engine. that's pretty much it, the cinematics tool is a secondary "plugin" of sorts. The major difference is, STO never recieved a modernization update, EVE Online did, and so did several other much smaller MMO's.
Here's the april fools gag from last year. If you missed it, cryptic made a very early version of the game playable alongside current STO.
It's a great illustration of what can be done with a slow, methodical approach to improving the game.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Blizzard also spent 7 years and probably many many times STO's annual income trying to make WoW 2.0 and gave up in defeat.
We shouldn't allow Blizzard's failures to define the potential of Cryptic's development team. The future is bright at Cryptic. Let's keep pushing the envelope and get this done.
why not? the industry seems to treat anything WoW related as gospel :P
here's the thing, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online, recieved MASSIVE updates to their engines. STO did not, STO just recieved some minor segmented updates to their graphical engine. that's pretty much it, the cinematics tool is a secondary "plugin" of sorts. The major difference is, STO never recieved a modernization update, EVE Online did, and so did several other much smaller MMO's.
Here's the april fools gag from last year. If you missed it, cryptic made a very early version of the game playable alongside current STO.
It's a great illustration of what can be done with a slow, methodical approach to improving the game.
uhuh.....you do realize most of that was not the engine, it was their adaptation with DirectX. not to mention their mentality (for ships at least) abandoning any major parts customizations outside of paid formats. The only real things done to the engine itself were mostly just rapid allocation of assets (foundry).
and say nothing of their budget increase, which allowed for much larger models, much more detailed assets. it's not the engine they messed with. it's the fact they've got the money to actually do the things that make the game look good.
They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make:
They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
I wrote a method yesterday, ran the program, and it wasn't on fire! So I spent a while testing and looking for the fire. I didn't find a fire. It looks like it's working perfectly, so I figure I must still be in hell and it just hasn't kicked in yet.
I don't exactly agree with the quote, actually. And even if might be on fire and in hell, but many programmers believe they're in heaven. Particular game deveopers, I think, that's why their companies get away with all the "crunch time" and extra hours.
But "being like riding a bike except the bike is on fire and you're on fire" doesn't mean you are actually on fire - it is just a way to explain the... difficulty of it.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Maybe read this again. Maybe it sounds too far fetched too you. Maybe the example wasn't perfect.
"Hey, my Ford Fiesta's engine occassionally stutters. Also, in those hot summers I really hate that I don't have a climate control."
"Oh, I see. Maybe you should just upgrade the engine. I've heard they have really good ones at BMW, in the BMW M3 for example. And they have climate control at BMW, too. And they have much more horsepower"
"Replacing the engine? Do you know how costly that would be?"
"Ah, it can't be that bad! It's just something in the front quarter of your car, it should be much cheaper than a new car. You can keep all the other stuff, you know, tires, steering wheel, brakes, heck, even the seats would still work!"
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make:
They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
It's always humorously entertaining to see people talking about 'game engines' that have no idea how they actually work
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
Sure, there are game engines out there. But that doesn't mean you can simply exchange them without throwing away most of what you already have.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
I wrote a method yesterday, ran the program, and it wasn't on fire! So I spent a while testing and looking for the fire. I didn't find a fire. It looks like it's working perfectly, so I figure I must still be in hell and it just hasn't kicked in yet.
I don't exactly agree with the quote, actually. And even if might be on fire and in hell, but many programmers believe they're in heaven. Particular game deveopers, I think, that's why their companies get away with all the "crunch time" and extra hours.
But "being like riding a bike except the bike is on fire and you're on fire" doesn't mean you are actually on fire - it is just a way to explain the... difficulty of it.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Maybe read this again. Maybe it sounds too far fetched too you. Maybe the example wasn't perfect.
"Hey, my Ford Fiesta's engine occassionally stutters. Also, in those hot summers I really hate that I don't have a climate control."
"Oh, I see. Maybe you should just upgrade the engine. I've heard they have really good ones at BMW, in the BMW M3 for example. And they have climate control at BMW, too. And they have much more horsepower"
"Replacing the engine? Do you know how costly that would be?"
"Ah, it can't be that bad! It's just something in the front quarter of your car, it should be much cheaper than a new car. You can keep all the other stuff, you know, tires, steering wheel, brakes, heck, even the seats would still work!"
Yes, I am familiar with the concept of metaphors; thank you for explaining it to me.
It would take at least a year, and maybe two years, and they might as well just write a new game while they're at it. It would require having two full-time teams, and the second team (the "rewrite team") would have to hit a moving target unless the community would allow development to completely cease on the 32-bit version. We both know that wouldn't be acceptable, and I've done that sort of "moving target" development before--it doesn't end well.
more like 3-5 years to build a new engine. thats resources they wont spend to make one either, especially for star trek online, and what happens if there are unforeseen circumstances along the way? it would be a massive risk.
no i cant see this game engine being rebuild or the team pulling the game for a few years to "fix" their engine.
Yeah, pretty much this.
The game, and our engine are constantly being updated and improved. Most of that is small stuff, sometimes we get bigger stuff, but it's always going on.
That said, the idea of starting over from scratch, or trying to move all of the game assets, missions, systems, etc. onto a new, different framework, would be harder than de-borgifying someone. It's possible, but Seven's still got implants, and Jean-Luc still has flashbacks. And the end result likely wouldn't be what you're looking for anyway, and would be VERY unlikely to be worth the investment.
Again, that doesn't mean that we don't upgrade our existing engine, just means we're not going to hot-swap it out for another one, or rebuild everything from scratch.
A ) If the game is selling well why aren't you investing portions of that money in not just maintaining the server but overhauling the thing?
Or
B ) You claim that you're too small to get stuff done.... Why isn't that money actively going into hiring new people. The last anyone was made publically aware of jobs being open was "We need a new lead writer!"
A ) Upgrade and Improve, more than Overhaul, but we do. Constantly.
B ) We've had our "new" lead writer for almost a year now, I think? He's been here a while anyway. Long enough to have to move cubicles at least once. We've also got some new QA folks, a couple new Environment Artists, and probably other things I'm not thinking of. But that doesn't magically make us a 400 person Bioware/EA/Blizzard dev team. We ARE a small team, even when we add a few people to it.
I am pretty sure that is what is happening all the time. The engine won't get replaced by something entirely different, but it will constantly see improvements.
Look at screenshots from the release of the game, and look at them now. You'll see the differences.
Look at the release ship models, and look at newly released ships. There have been constant refinements and improvements to the game, and they will continue until the game can no longer be maintained.
Yes they can upgrade the engine significantly over time and keep making things better. A new engine would mean a lot more then just better graphics and less lag though it would open the door to entirely new forms of gameplay never before used perhaps by any MMO. If they were to go this route the game would and should be redesigned from the ground up, mechanics powers etc. would not be the same. This would be good IMO but many people would likely hate it because it's different. (see skill revamp for more info)
Point is, the issues we are having now can be fixed without a new engine but a new engine could mean an amazing new game.
Is another expansion (making bigger) of sector space being looked at? I hope so. I still think that was one of the best things that was done...expanding sector space to make it more vast.
They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make:
They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
Blizzard also spent 7 years and probably many many times STO's annual income trying to make WoW 2.0 and gave up in defeat.
We shouldn't allow Blizzard's failures to define the potential of Cryptic's development team. The future is bright at Cryptic. Let's keep pushing the envelope and get this done.
why not? the industry seems to treat anything WoW related as gospel :P
That just means the industry needs an upgrade to its engine as well! This runs deep, but we can help stem the tide. It all starts here. Let's pitch in and give Cryptic the help it needs. We're plucky, we're underdogs, but we're the TREK community. We practically invented crowdsourcing!
That said, the idea of starting over from scratch, or trying to move all of the game assets, missions, systems, etc. onto a new, different framework, would be harder than de-borgifying someone. It's possible, but Seven's still got implants, and Jean-Luc still has flashbacks. And the end result likely wouldn't be what you're looking for anyway, and would be VERY unlikely to be worth the investment.
Wait a sec now! You're saying that Seven's IMPLANTS are bad? And Picard flashbacks are bad? I see these as value added features! You're convincing me now more than ever that we need a new engine.
Again, that doesn't mean that we don't upgrade our existing engine, just means we're not going to hot-swap it out for another one, or rebuild everything from scratch.
We could try equipping the Iconian 4-pc set, and then hot restart the engine? Just a suggestion!
They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make:
They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
I'm glad @tacofangs stopped by to drop some truth bombs on the unrealistic or simply misunderstood ideas about how game engines can just be swapped out, like some seem to think.
Even though they are both called "engines", a game engine is NOT like a car engine in the sense that you CAN just swap it out for another without having to rebuild the entire car.
A game engine is more like an operating system on your computer. Sure, you can make improvements to your current engine, kind of like how you can upgrade to a new version of Windows. However changing or swapping out game engines would be like trying to go from Windows to Mac on the same computer. You might be able to do it, but most of your programs aren't going to work anymore.
Comments
My suggestion is for the devs to read up on Unity! Mostly because that's the one I know anything about and was thinking of taking an online class to learn how to make a game using it.
Just push the "upgrade game engine" button. I love it.
Unity?! *gags* Till you've played a game on unity trust me, Unity is the last hunk of TRIBBLE you'd want to use. And guys it takes A LOT to come up with a whole new engine. It's basically building a brand new game from the ground up.
Unless there's a huge payoff at the end and many people open wallets, something like this won't EVER happen. Hell 2 years ago WoT promised the Havok engine upgrade and it STILL hasn't happened yet.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
If you put in "download game engine" on google, there are a ton of them you can download for free. Many of them can be upgraded, yes.
I'm sure they've already considered outsourcing to one of these free engines and decided not to do it for reasons we'll never know. That's fine, though, I don't have a problem with their in-house engine, even though it is a little dated.
It's a bit like saying: "There is lots of cheap real estate in Siberia. If you worry about the earth quakes, why not just move your California industry complex over there?" or "I've heard nuclear reactors last a lot longer than car batteries, why don't you just put one of those in your Tesla?"
Mustrum "Programming is easy like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're actually in hell" Ridcully
They wouldn't have to throw away what we already have. Databases aren't like land, they're digital. They can be moved or copied to new servers with different software on them. They could just put the old database on a new server with a new engine so we don't lose our characters, ships, and whatnot.
But does the database format still make sense for the new engine, or does it except different data structures, different data types? An engine will come with its own assumptions for how things are to be done, they don't necessarily translate.
Will the adaptations to the new engine require a new database scheme? What about all those countless of game models still in the game? What does it take to translate them for the new engine to understand, what unique engine strengths or weaknesses were they designed in mind with that no longer apply? Do they have sufficient fidelity to even warrant a conversion process?
What about all the powers the game has, what kind of framework does the game engine provide, is it compatible with Cryptic's or would they need to remodel every power or reimplement their old system somehow? If the translation is easy, how many lag problems will be once again right back into the new engine, because the computational costliness of these problematic powers has not changed at all, and thus it creates the very same bottlenecks as before?
IF you need to make such fundamental changes, why not just put a "Star Trek Online 2" stamp on it and have you make new accounts so you can buy everything again?
Who is to say the new engine doesn't bring its own lag problems? Mechwarrior Online used Cryengine and had severe lag problems for a long time, and it's more like an FPS shooter so being able to be in sync between all players and the server was critical, otherwise you shoot at empty air.
How long will it take for the developers to get accustomed to the new engine and learn all its tricks, potential and pitfalls?
Heck, if your main problem is lag, first thing to try now I think should be to turn off the combat log. Enough people haveexperienced problems just from that*, and the combat log is a completely superfluous feature..
*) Not so surprising if you realize what logging will require to do - write stuff sequentially into a file. Writing something on your hard disk is several magnitudes slower than writing something to RAM. And if you don't want to corrupt the file contents, you probably need to make those calls blocking in some way. Even if in the end the hard disk is not the bottleneck but just some thread synchronization, it can slow things down...
^BIIIIIINGO!
Good point. They worked hard to preserve the Genesis system and the exploration system built around that.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
Quote of interest:
Netscape spent three years on the equivalent of "upgrading the engine." What's the last time you heard about someone using Netscape to browse the Internet?
I wrote a method yesterday, ran the program, and it wasn't on fire! So I spent a while testing and looking for the fire. I didn't find a fire. It looks like it's working perfectly, so I figure I must still be in hell and it just hasn't kicked in yet.
We shouldn't allow Blizzard's failures to define the potential of Cryptic's development team. The future is bright at Cryptic. Let's keep pushing the envelope and get this done.
Having 1/20 the resources just makes the game more interesting!
(Edit: to be clear, Cryptic does keep improving the game and the engine we have. It's the dream of a completely new engine that's implausible.)
Plucky Underdogs are my theme for this week!
Point is, the issues we are having now can be fixed without a new engine but a new engine could mean an amazing new game.
here's the thing, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online, recieved MASSIVE updates to their engines. STO did not, STO just recieved some minor segmented updates to their graphical engine. that's pretty much it, the cinematics tool is a secondary "plugin" of sorts. The major difference is, STO never recieved a modernization update, EVE Online did, and so did several other much smaller MMO's.
Here's the april fools gag from last year. If you missed it, cryptic made a very early version of the game playable alongside current STO.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9119293-star-trek-online:-rebirth
It's a great illustration of what can be done with a slow, methodical approach to improving the game.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
why not? the industry seems to treat anything WoW related as gospel :P
uhuh.....you do realize most of that was not the engine, it was their adaptation with DirectX. not to mention their mentality (for ships at least) abandoning any major parts customizations outside of paid formats. The only real things done to the engine itself were mostly just rapid allocation of assets (foundry).
and say nothing of their budget increase, which allowed for much larger models, much more detailed assets. it's not the engine they messed with. it's the fact they've got the money to actually do the things that make the game look good.
I don't exactly agree with the quote, actually. And even if might be on fire and in hell, but many programmers believe they're in heaven.
But "being like riding a bike except the bike is on fire and you're on fire" doesn't mean you are actually on fire - it is just a way to explain the... difficulty of it.
Yes, and they do it through hard, dedicated work - time for a training montage!
Maybe read this again. Maybe it sounds too far fetched too you. Maybe the example wasn't perfect.
"Hey, my Ford Fiesta's engine occassionally stutters. Also, in those hot summers I really hate that I don't have a climate control."
"Oh, I see. Maybe you should just upgrade the engine. I've heard they have really good ones at BMW, in the BMW M3 for example. And they have climate control at BMW, too. And they have much more horsepower"
"Replacing the engine? Do you know how costly that would be?"
"Ah, it can't be that bad! It's just something in the front quarter of your car, it should be much cheaper than a new car. You can keep all the other stuff, you know, tires, steering wheel, brakes, heck, even the seats would still work!"
Yes, I am familiar with the concept of metaphors; thank you for explaining it to me.
Yeah, pretty much this.
The game, and our engine are constantly being updated and improved. Most of that is small stuff, sometimes we get bigger stuff, but it's always going on.
That said, the idea of starting over from scratch, or trying to move all of the game assets, missions, systems, etc. onto a new, different framework, would be harder than de-borgifying someone. It's possible, but Seven's still got implants, and Jean-Luc still has flashbacks. And the end result likely wouldn't be what you're looking for anyway, and would be VERY unlikely to be worth the investment.
Again, that doesn't mean that we don't upgrade our existing engine, just means we're not going to hot-swap it out for another one, or rebuild everything from scratch.
A ) Upgrade and Improve, more than Overhaul, but we do. Constantly.
B ) We've had our "new" lead writer for almost a year now, I think? He's been here a while anyway. Long enough to have to move cubicles at least once. We've also got some new QA folks, a couple new Environment Artists, and probably other things I'm not thinking of. But that doesn't magically make us a 400 person Bioware/EA/Blizzard dev team. We ARE a small team, even when we add a few people to it.
100%
That browser is now called Firefox.
That just means the industry needs an upgrade to its engine as well! This runs deep, but we can help stem the tide. It all starts here. Let's pitch in and give Cryptic the help it needs. We're plucky, we're underdogs, but we're the TREK community. We practically invented crowdsourcing!
TOGETHER WE BUILD ... an upgraded engine!
Wait a sec now! You're saying that Seven's IMPLANTS are bad? And Picard flashbacks are bad? I see these as value added features! You're convincing me now more than ever that we need a new engine.
We could try equipping the Iconian 4-pc set, and then hot restart the engine? Just a suggestion!
Let me google that ...
The Clint Eastwood movie?
Even though they are both called "engines", a game engine is NOT like a car engine in the sense that you CAN just swap it out for another without having to rebuild the entire car.
A game engine is more like an operating system on your computer. Sure, you can make improvements to your current engine, kind of like how you can upgrade to a new version of Windows. However changing or swapping out game engines would be like trying to go from Windows to Mac on the same computer. You might be able to do it, but most of your programs aren't going to work anymore.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008