My rant about game making software

a reply to: puzzlesphere

the game isn't going to be the same each time, for the following reasons:

1. the game world will look different, depending on who is creating it. see, all the landscape, building models and items, are the responsibility of the game creator, not the programmer. so are the npcs and critters. since many different sources are possible for the models and animated models, each game will be as unique as the model source, genre and personal preferences of the game creator, not the programmer.

2. the character creation room will look different, depending on who is creating it, because the room textures, size and other features, are the responsibility of the game creator, not the programmer.

3. whether or not the character is modifiable, is up to the game creator, provided the programmer offers that as a feature if the creator wants to use it. these features may vary as well, since one game creator may want only 2 features modifiable, where another will want all the main features modifiable and yet another, may want no modifiable features. this is the responsibility of the game creator, not the programmer. all the programmer does is provide the coding and ease of putting the character modifications into the game, if any, and the interface (modifiable) to allow the player to scroll thru the options.

4. how the lights, fog or lack thereof, and so on, appear in the game world, will be the responsibility of the game creator, once the programmer provides the means to add them in each zone. so once again, unique to the game creator

5. music and sound fx, responsibility of the game creator. all the programmer is doing is providing the easiest way possible to add these things into the game in each zone. does the character talk, does the npc talk when clicked on or walked past. do the birds tweet, or the wind howl. does the boss threaten. does the character make audible fighting sounds or just the weapons or neither. is there ambient noise or music. that's gonna be unique to each game creator.

6. camera usage is also unique to each game creator, as some may prefer 1st person, another might prefer 3rd person and another might want the camera to swing around the battle like in japanese turn based combat. all the programmer is doing is asking the question and making it as easy as possible to implement it

7. add-on packages add variety to the choices as well. can they farm. can they build their own houses/stores/etc. do they have professions and if so, what type? my game is a scifi with fantasy elements, so the stuff my character's may choose as profession is going to be different than someone else's fantasy rpg or adventure rpg. and the way those things look in the landscape will be different.

there's nothing cookie cutter about it, really.

the amount of npcs, the amount of zones, the type of flora and fauna, the guis, the length and style of battles, the appearance and type of pets, mounts, vehicles, all unique to the modeller the creator chooses and the genre. i'm talking specifically about 3d rpg (initially, with multiplayer or mmo as an add-on if so desired)

a reply to: undo

... but all the same game mechanics... shaders... rigs... interfaces... etc... it really is very cookie cutter...

For instance compare Mirror's Edge with World of Warcraft... entirely different games that require very different approaches to a game engine to create similar mechanics to each... in no way would it be possible to make Mirror's Edge with what you are suggesting, without serious modification to the source code.

When you say "as easy as possible to implement"... that's what currently exists with modern AAA game engines... all the various concepts in most game types rolled into a single package... as easy to implement as possible with current technology... It really is very easy to implement, and the amount of coding you need is significantly less than in the past.

Rather than complaining about some of the most powerful pieces of software around, ranting about programmers making your life easier, why don't you explore a range of game engines... develop a logic architecture that fits with what you desire in a game, and get a programmer to code it for you... won't be cheap.

Or... download UE4 for $19- and try using the blueprints feature, all you need is a good understanding of logic, and perseverance to learn all of the possible nodes and time to create some very complex blueprints... there will be a steep learning curve, but you can do almost everything you are asking for without ever having to write a line of code.

OP: I don't think you appreciate how many lines of code it takes to make a game engine, or the difference between functionality and add ons.

Here is an example...

a reply to: puzzlesphere

interfaces will be different graphically. my suggestion was to make the action bar extremely non-descript and very standard looking and then encourage the game creator to give it a personal touch. and would also be good to move it around the screen - for example, each button drag and droppable.

3d rpgs are somewhat different than 3d mmorpgs, in that you don't have the same type of set-up typically, for game play. for one, there's no pvp. if there's a group and they are in a battle together, it's typically a series of cutscene animations, with fairly non-descript battle menus. and battle is often extremely repetitive looking. the game play is alot more linear and alot more grindy in a single player rpg. whereas in a mmo, it can literally go in any direction and game play is often like a sandbox on steroids. you can pvp. you can dungeon crawl. you can do professions. you can raid. you can run battle grounds or arenas. you can work on achievements. you can work the auction house/marketplace. and so on.

alot of that stuff, just isn't in a 3d rpg.

originally posted by: Volund
OP: I don't think you appreciate how many lines of code it takes to make a game engine, or the difference between functionality and add ons.

Here is an example...

woo. how did you get that size number 7, 899, 666, 839
lol

yeah i can appreciate it. i was working on a browser based game and before the character had even gotten to their home after being created, the file was over 2 gigabytes from the massive images that were necessary to simulate 3d environments, and all the individual images for character modification for 10 different races.

The content folder for art assets (like GUI) is only 214mb of that... the rest is coding files and dependencies. I think the 666 is coincidental but it is an evil engine, also coincidental... or is it?

art assets like models and textures are not part of an engine. An engine is made up of thousands of source files that are compiled... once compiled it becomes a binary file (a single exe file that you click on to launch the engine) and in this way the source remains confidential and un editable. Binary files are what is released to the public and they are much smaller than the sum of all the source files. This is where a lot of people get confused about it. Scripting files in c#, for example, that are written later to interact with the binary are not part of the engine itself. Most of what you would like would be done on the scripting side once the binary is completed.

Keeping this in mind I think you should try torque 3d, it seems to have just about everything you need, and there are resources to do add ons... and its free now (I had to pay plenty for books and older versions, and classes on it so this is a lucky thing for you). GarageGames Link.

a reply to: Volund

it's very nice of you to try to help me iron this out, but you're ignoring the op.

to make the 3rpg capable of quickly transitioning to the 3d mmorpg:

essentially, you'd be making a 3d mmorpg, that only has one person playing it when it's a single player 3d rpg. and then when transitioning to the mmo features for a 3d mmorpg, you'd just create server(s) for it and a login system. the front end is mentioned in step 20, since any system capable of running a store, could also run the player account system, password and login functions. same applies to multiplayer. it's already a multiplayer when it's a 3d rpg, it just doesn't have the coding for pvp or servers, logins, etc.

the rest of the mmo features, such as pvp and massive multiple players, are just variants of player vs. environment. even single player 3d rpgs have group functions, where the character groups with npcs during the game, so you'd just be telling it to assign an npc as a group member instead of a pc, when it's a singleplayer 3d rpg

oh and a variant for the combat system/state machine, obviously

so far all i've had is people offering me the same suspects i've been complaining about: 3d rpg creation systems for programmers/scripters - that try to sell themselves as usable by non-programmers. this thread is about a 3d rpg creation system for people who don't code, PERIOD. not, well you will likely have to code if you want to add anything later. lol or well it has a sharp learning curve. noooo, no coding. no programming. no scripting. no sharp learning curve.

your job, should you choose to accept it, is to become THE programmer for millions of people who want very badly to create the game worlds in their heads, and can't because the software is too complicated. too many menus and functions just smack in yer face right from the word go, with no guidelines. you even have to figure out where their tutorials are located, as they don't load in the window when the software does, BECAUSE IT'S MADE WITH PROGRAMMERS IN MIND or it offers you examples of every game type except a 3d rpg (some kind of weird anomalie of the game programming community that the only people making succesful rpg creation software, only make it for 2d games). think of this like a different type of product, entirely. yes it makes games, no it isn't for programmers as it would drive them crazy

offering me the same solutions that are part of the problem, is like trolling my thread.

p.s. if the problem is because you would lose face in the game programming community for making this, just put it in the name of your child or little brother or a nom de plume.

and yes i do like wow, but i also like mass effect 1,2 and 3. i like scifi and fantasy games. now if you think about the difference between mass effect and wow, you know there is no way they would look cookie cutter-ed in a software capable of making them. the models are different, the genre is different, the guis are different. the way the player moves between locations is very different to semi-different. (cutscenes vs. automated travel or real time travel). the storylines are different. the encounters are different. etc. how could they possibly look like they were created with the same software? somebody is trolling me big time here. lol

mass effect 3 rpg



wow 3d mmorpg (warning: foul language)



not.the.same.look

will you guys quit acting like a good old boys club long enough to realize what i'm saying! please.

a programmer, rents him or herself out, to provide software for people who would normally compose a game making group. consider the people who are buying your software are working on a game WITH YOU, not against you. YOU are the programmer for their group. why would you become the programmer for their group, half code the thing, and expect musicians and artists to know what to do with it the rest of the way?

for crying out loud.

a reply to: undo

Your Mass Effect and WoW comparison is good for proving our point. Those two games have very different game mechanics... the stuff you so blithely refer to as "just the programming bit". They may seem similar, but there are vast and fundamental differences. An engine capable of creating both those games is the equivalent of modern AAA game engines. You just can't accept that your idea has many deep flaws.

What you don't seem to understand is that RPG's are hugely complicated, which is part of the reason you don't find out of the box examples like other game types, or many tutorials for "Make an RPG".

You can't make a simple workflow engine that will produce enough variation to be different... engines need options... anything that is as simple as you describe (with current tech... at least for the next decade) will make the exact same game with minor visual differences... not the deep variation you are imagining. (Different asset types, look and feels, mechanics, narratives, etc. all need different base coding frameworks). That's the key here... to make things look and feel different, and still run smoothly on most peoples hardware takes different coding approaches.

Modern AAA games have come a long way to solving these issues however, and actually make the complexity accessible to many, but are nowhere near your ideal.

Most RPG's aren't even made with a game engines as such... they are coded from the ground up, with a team of developers, artists and programmers.

The product you are suggesting would take a huge team, years of dedicated programming and artistry and literally hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Which is why you're getting so much push back in this thread... you seem to be belittling the whole concept of game development, and reducing it to the equivalent of "Why can't I flap my arms and fly?"...

There is not the value to your suggestion to justify the creation of such an engine... hundreds of millions of dollars of investment for a relatively small group of people that want to make cookie cutter RPG's... your value proposition is entirely out of scope.

If you think it's such a great idea, Kickstart it, and see how much interest you get. If there really are millions of people that want the product you are suggesting, you should be able to garner millions of dollars of investment for a first round, which would give you enough to hire the core team and begin development... of course you would have to have progressive releases to retain interest and keep investors happy... I think it would be a struggle at the best... and most likely a complete failure at the worst.

We're not being a "good old boys club", we're trying to explain to you why your idea is fundamentally flawed, yet you refuse to take criticism.

Apologies if you feel we're trolling you, but you touched on a passionate subject for people that deal with game engines.

Cheers

the rpg example (mass effect) is graphically more elaborate because it's one person playing a game, which means the graphics card doesn't have to also load massively multiplayer pcs and all their textures, just the single player. not to mention, that's running on a console system so it's really specialized. naturally, if you wanted to make an engine that could, if requested, run as an mmo, you would design it graphically, to run on graphics cards with less texture memory and so forth. it would have to be more on par with wow style graphics (maybe not quite so downgraded, but close, so many different types of graphics cards could run it. perhaps direct x9? 10? )

the comparison i was making was the "look" of the game. not the advanced shiny graphics but the techy look of the game, vs. wow, which is a fantasy based and just doesn't look the same. once you changed the graphical look and the gui, storyline, fx and sound fx, you have a different game. that guy in wow, running around, is doing the same thing the guy in mass effect is doing - just 2 different genres. he's travelling around in a 3d world, 3rd person camera, attacking things with a weapon. i've played both games. believe me i've been studying this and pondering it for a long time. i know the limitations of games and the complexity.

however, by now, there are hundreds of companies out there, rebooting the same game system they had 10 years ago - adding a new story, new music, and selling it all over again, and they stole the system from a competitor, who made it 3 years before that and both of them are passing it around to all the depts in their company, who are making different types of games with them over and over. and hackers pick it up and change a few things and make more games with it. and these people crank out game after game after game, while we sit here and argue that programmers, can't do that. they not only can do that, they've been doing that, for YEARS.

every single mmo or rpg code is out there, in spades, all over the place. albeit occasionally a hack job of someone else's hard work, but technically speaking, there's not one thing in rpg and mmo game creation this isn't already old hat to many programmers. they know exactly how its done and have it all saved up, nice and neat, where it can be recycled when called for, at their leisure. i don't buy, for one second, that it's too complicated for today's programmers.

yes i know mass effect camera work is different.

here's a guy who not only knows how wow is coded, he made an entire machinma movie from it, for free, controlled and filmed the characters. for no reason. at all. just cause.

I'm with puzzlesphere here. Having worked on a AAA title and on 2 other indie games, I have a good understanding of what it takes to make video games. If there was a cookie cutter solution to making awesome games, game developers would be put out of business. Also, the market would be flooded with crappy games created by people who think they know how to make good games.

Game development is easier then ever, but as the technology advances, other areas become more complex. The pipeline for various aspects of the industry is extremely dynamic and is constantly changing. Implementing characters or environment assets is way different today than it was even 5 years ago. Things like physically based rendering, or upgrades to the packages used to generate assets (like maya or zbrush, etc) are constantly changing the way artists go about their jobs. You just can't implement a cookie cutter solution to such a dynamic industry, and even if you could, it would cheapen the end result.

OP, have you tried RPG maker? There is some scripting required to use it, but it's not anything crazy and could be learned in a few weeks. I think it also has a fairly large community as well, that shares scripts and tutorials and such. That might be something you could look at instead of trying to do something that usually takes a team of 300 people 5 years to accomplish, all on your own.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

that's just it. by now, the rpg and mmo market has been around for so long, there's nothing in either, that isn't already coded a million times over and passed around by everybody and his uncle that knows how to program such games.

furthermore, crappy games are going to happen, regardless. if they happen (and they do), how's that going to hurt AAA titles? they own everything already. they already have a dedicated market. do they honestly believe indie companies are going to steal their thunder? sorry indies have been around for a long time now, and the same game companies that were on top 10 years ago, are still on top and indies are still not on top. i can't believe that excuse is still being paraded around -- egads a bunch of crappy indie games, as if that's not already going on now.

i must apologize for being so cynical. i'm just terribly frustrated about this whole thing.