"However while it may be free to develop and release a non-commercial game, should you wish to profit from your hard work the current UDK license states that 25% of all revenue earnt beyond $5,000 will be paid to Epic as your licensing cost."
I don't know how much that is relative to the usual cost of an engine, but that's a lot of money.
For a big company who has a lot of capital it would be quite costly to lose 25% of the proceeds. However for an indie developer who not only dosen't have the capital to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars for an engine, but also is much less likely to make enough proceeds from sales to even cover the cost of buying the engine in the first place, this is probably the cheapest offer ever for an engine of this calibur.
I'm not overly fond of the unreal engine myself. Quake had the better engine back in the days but, right now I'd probably prefer the half life engine, it seems more capable. (Edit: And just to clarify I like MaB running its own engine. I wouldn't want any of the engines mentioned above to the game.)
This is only due to the fact that the engine is very old.
It wasn't the case when it was first released back in the years. They didn't create the game saying "hey let's make an ugly game so even trash comps can handle it!"
Only time allowed this.
And Unreal Engine IS a very nice engine that allows a number of incredible things.
Plus it can handle large crowds quite well afaik, no ned to tell you how this could help !
MaB is not exactly indie anymore, I'm not sure if they'd qualify for free use.
Paradox Interactive published M&B. That is what you missed. Come to think of it, if TaleWorlds uses that engine and pays 25% of the proceeds, that would be Paradox Interactive's decision, them being the publisher and all.
I don't think they could get random terrain generation into that engine. And it's still primarily an indoor engine, isn't it?
Now, if we could dream, then I say get the Armed Assault 2 people at Bohemia to license you their terrain abilities. Entire islands in high GFX detail to ride over - seamless.
This is only due to the fact that the engine is very old.
It wasn't the case when it was first released back in the years. They didn't create the game saying "hey let's make an ugly game so even trash comps can handle it!"
Only time allowed this.
Every developer knows their engine will be old by the time game is released unless theres serious upgrade.
Whatever the case, do you really think it would be good for the game and developers to use engine that only small number of people would be able to use, and the only reason of having the engine would be making game attractive to 14yr old kids? Check how many eastern european players are in the game. They dont have alienware.
Its not that I mind MnB2 having much better graphics, its just that when I hear unreal and quake and **** like that, I want to run as far as I can. Even if its just engine. Last time some developers I was familiar with thought Unreal engine is great idea, they spent more times on graphics and making game optimized so people even with good machines can run it - than making a playable fun and balanced game. They went bankrupt of course.
Are you refering to thief 3? I think that game made really good use of the engine. But as for being optimized, I was under the impression that the unreal engine is already very optimized for running on low end systems, more so then most engines. You can play the unreal games on pretty crappy computers in my experience. The biggest thing I dislike about the engine is the way it makes you feel like you are floating when you run around. But I dunno if thats an issue with the engine or specificly with the unreal games. It kinda has that feel in Thief 3, but if any game is to have that feeling it would be that game since you are being stealthy when you move.
I don't think it's a versatile enough engine for M&B. You want big outdoor battles with 100's of people? Well then why do it in an engine optimized around tiny corridors, high poly, lots of effects... Sorry but engine's aren't really one size fits all. M&B is different than first person shooters and needs to have it's own tech, or a tech made around huge battles, and outdoors.
Well such an advanced engine provides better visuals, for sure. But it's not the main interest.
I was thinking of physics, how the game handles damage, players, hitboxes, movement and such things that are so important to gameplay.
And I wonder why people believe so hard Unreal engine 3 is only good for interiors. It can do well in exteriors as well, it's actually quite versatile.
There are even MMORPGS using this engine.
Isn't M&B being developed by only a few people? I haven't really checked, but do they even have an office, or does everything simply go through Paradox? It would be awesome if Taleworlds got access to a better engine to make a much more solid game, but that also requires more programmers, designers, along with a bigger office that requires more money. Then they'd have to advertise to increase their audience, all of which would cost an epic amount of money. They'd have to take out loans in the millions and then hope it works.
Not to mention that one of the biggest advantages of MnB would be gone - ability to play the game on old computers.
This is such a dumb statement. Most computers that cream the extremely low requirements to play this game are probably cheaper now, than the "old" computers that people bought years ago for way more money and still use. Another thing, they could also scale graphics settings, which basically allows any and all computers to play it, with the best computers getting to see excellent graphics, while the lowest are still able to play with reasonable FPS.
Another thing with this BS "omg better graphics = bad game argument." One fact to consider, did you know that M&B only has 3 different kinds of animations? The walking animations, the limited combat animations, and the world map walking animations (If I missed something, let me know LOL). EVERYTHING else in this game, is substituted by a menu. I don't know for certain whether or not they're limited to this because of their engine, or because of the extra work it'd require. Better graphics however, doesn't mean adding 2048 res textures and HD shading/lighting. It's also filling in for all of these gaps that the game already has.
The only thing people do in towns is walk around, and turn towards you when you talk to them.
EVERYTHING else, literally EVERYTHING else in this game, instead of being rendered, is swapped by a menu giving you a description of what they want you to know is "happening." This game is practically a cross between a text-based RPG, and a BF1942-esque combat game. The people whining that "improving" the graphics will make it impossible to play, are full of crap. You can't even begin to update the actual quality of the graphics until you have graphics to improve.
But in all seriousness, if your computer is that ancient or you can't afford a better one, I'd like to ask a few questions (spoiler them). Most computers bought pre-built are many more times expensive than the parts it took to put them together. Building a computer only takes a few hours, and having a friend who knows how to do it will only save you time and make it so you don't mess up. The actual building of a computer, is as difficult as setting up a sound system, if not easier. Theres almost no excuse to say "I HAVE NO TIME TO LEARN" when you clearly have enough time to play this game then tell everyone how you want to keep the game in terrible quality because you have a bad computer.
A) When did you get your computer (year)
B) What are the specs
C) How much did you pay (If it wasn't in american dollars, convert the currency)
Isn't M&B being developed by only a few people? I haven't really checked, but do they even have an office, or does everything simply go through Paradox? It would be awesome if Taleworlds got access to a better engine to make a much more solid game, but that also requires more programmers, designers, along with a bigger office that requires more money. Then they'd have to advertise to increase their audience, all of which would cost an epic amount of money. They'd have to take out loans in the millions and then hope it works.
The M&B team is indeed small and I personally don't think it would be a good idea to use the Unreal Engine 3:
First, because it doesn't cater to the needs of a game like M&B. This engine was made (it seems to me) to first and foremost explore a number of graphical capabilities introduced to the mainstream gaming by this generation, and is apparently very limited since, not only many games that use it have the same look, but most of the ones that seem worthwhile seem to be developed by Epic. Taleworlds however need an engine capable of rendering many units on screen, and manipulate lots of variables, for AI, physics, general gameplay and the like. The UE3 was not made for this.. in fact the one who comes closest is the Total War series engine, and even then, that games approach to how things are done is a little bit different from M&B's way.
Second because Taleworlds built a pretty good engine (as one can see from CD Projeckt's licensing of the same) and, as such, I imagine they can do it again for M&B 2 (or whatever the next release may be), which not only gives them more control over their final project, but they may also generate revenue by licensing it to other companies.
Tyrant said:
Not to mention that one of the biggest advantages of MnB would be gone - ability to play the game on old computers.
This is such a dumb statement. Most computers that cream the extremely low requirements to play this game are probably cheaper now, than the "old" computers that people bought years ago for way more money and still use. Another thing, they could also scale graphics settings, which basically allows any and all computers to play it, with the best computers getting to see excellent graphics, while the lowest are still able to play with reasonable FPS.
It's not such a dumb statement as you make it out to be. Don't forget a computer with 3 years may be considered "old" by today's standard, and although computers and computer parts are somewhat cheap nowadays, not everyone has money to spend like that. Besides the possibility of playing on a wider variety of computers means a larger audience, which in turn may mean more profit.
I must also say that scaling is not the absolute answer for good performance. Although it certainly helps, performance depends alot on the engine, more specifically on it's functions, Colision calculations, physics, graphics, sound, etc..., and that is why there are engines whose games run very well on a wide variety of computers (besides optimizations). Think Half Life 2's engine vs Oblivion's engineor for example, CryEngine 2 vs CryEngine 3 (why is crysis 2, made on CE3, going to be ported to XBOX 360 and PS3 while Crysis made with CE2 wasn't (and this one wasn't ported because consoles couldn't run it) when they both look more or less the same graphically)
Tyrant said:
Another thing with this BS "omg better graphics = bad game argument." One fact to consider, did you know that M&B only has 3 different kinds of animations? The walking animations, the limited combat animations, and the world map walking animations (If I missed something, let me know LOL). EVERYTHING else in this game, is substituted by a menu. I don't know for certain whether or not they're limited to this because of their engine, or because of the extra work it'd require. Better graphics however, doesn't mean adding 2048 res textures and HD shading/lighting. It's also filling in for all of these gaps that the game already has.
The only thing people do in towns is walk around, and turn towards you when you talk to them.
EVERYTHING else, literally EVERYTHING else in this game, instead of being rendered, is swapped by a menu giving you a description of what they want you to know is "happening." This game is practically a cross between a text-based RPG, and a BF1942-esque combat game. The people whining that "improving" the graphics will make it impossible to play, are full of crap. You can't even begin to update the actual quality of the graphics until you have graphics to improve.
That's a simplification of the graphics argument, and a bad simplification. That discussion is about how important graphics are to the quality of the final product, and this is because, a game's development costs money and has a schedule (obviously), so when you focus more on something, you'll have to sacfrifice something else. This isn't about wether good graphics equal a bad game, this is about how many companies focus more on graphics, putting gameplay and story on the back story so as to attract a wider audience.
Oh and what was that about animations? Gears of War has 3 kinds of animations also, walking, firing and using cover ... that's not how things work. What matters is how good, how believable the animations are, and M&B's one do their job decently, and it doesn't matter howmany things are rendered and how many are presented through text... look, the part where you had to walk to the village elder to accept quests was replaced BY the community with a menu option through one of TML's tweaks. It's about convenience, it's about skipping the boring parts to go to the fun ones, and in M&B the fun lies in the battles. So yeah, we don't want to walk, the towns are beautiful, but I don't need to walk inside my castle to go to the dungeon, or walk in a town to go to -all- vendors.. I just want those parts to be fast so I can focus on the game's best parts.
Tyrant said:
But in all seriousness, if your computer is that ancient or you can't afford a better one, I'd like to ask a few questions (spoiler them). Most computers bought pre-built are many more times expensive than the parts it took to put them together. Building a computer only takes a few hours, and having a friend who knows how to do it will only save you time and make it so you don't mess up. The actual building of a computer, is as difficult as setting up a sound system, if not easier. Theres almost no excuse to say "I HAVE NO TIME TO LEARN" when you clearly have enough time to play this game then tell everyone how you want to keep the game in terrible quality because you have a bad computer.
A) When did you get your computer (year)
B) What are the specs
C) How much did you pay (If it wasn't in american dollars, convert the currency)
Not everyone has money to spend like that.. besides not everyone has the same ease at setting up electronic systems, some people excel at one thing, others excel at other things. And I guess some people may prefer to spend their time playing the game than learning to build a PC, but that is besides the point.
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... that's not how things work. What matters is how good, how believable the animations are, and M&B's one do their job decently, and it doesn't matter howmany things are rendered and how many are presented through text... look, the part where you had to walk to the village elder to accept quests was replaced BY the community with a menu option through one of TML's tweaks. It's about convenience, it's about skipping the boring parts to go to the fun ones, and in M&B the fun lies in the battles. So yeah, we don't want to walk, the towns are beautiful, but I don't need to walk inside my castle to go to the dungeon, or walk in a town to go to -all- vendors.. I just want those parts to be fast so I can focus on the game's best parts.
