[MUD-Dev] Jeff's Rant: A World Full of Wheel-Makers

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Hook <bwh at wksoftware.com>
>At 12:08 PM 5/21/01 -0400, Dave Rickey wrote:

>> Frankly, iD's Quake engine was a step *back* for the concept of
>> engine liscensing, as John Carmack's refusal to do *anything* to
>> make it more flexible

> While this is quite true (John's reticence was because id's business
> model was based on successful games, not engine licensing...engine
> income was strictly gravy), I would argue that Quake is probably one
> of the best examples of true code reuse in existence.  Many
> successful games have been built on that engine, and unlike many
> other "engines" and "libraries", the licensee would start out with a
> functional game that they could then modify.  The problem with pure
> engines is that many of them end up falling apart on real projects
> because they were never really put to the test of making a
> commercial application.

Granted, but the list of games burned by that "throw out the code"
approach starts with Daikatana and goes on at great length.  A lot of
companies assumed (yes, assumed rather than read what the liscense
actually said) that they could start development for the Q1 engine and
port to Q2.

>>  and insistence on rewriting it from scratch with each version
>>  caused many projects using it to balloon in budget or go under
>>  completely.
 
> This is not the fault of the engine, but poor planning and, frankly,
> idiotic licensing terms on the part of licensees.  Licensees were
> practically stumbling over themselves to license early versions of
> id engines, even though id would constantly warn and say "Look, this
> isn't done yet, you're better off waiting".  And because licensees
> could not make games faster than id, they were constantly playing
> catch up because they'd complete their Gen 1 game only to find id
> releasing their Gen 2 game.

Mostly because John has a well-deserved reputation as a programming
god, nobody wanted to say with a straight face that they could
home-brew a better engine than his.  In fact, the list of people in
his league is rather short, and they tend to come with high price tags
(as you know ;-).  Given the demands of producing a game with at least
Quake engine grade graphics, to the business side of things liscensing
the real thing looked like a good deal at first.
 
> No matter how id could have made that engine, there was no way to
> abstract away fundamental underlying technologies that didn't exist
> yet.

Yes, true.  3D technology was going through a generation every 6
months, making predicating anything but a straight shooter on it a
very tough trick.
 
>>  If I was looking for an engine to make a new game, I would stay
>>  *far* away from it.  Name recognition isn't what you want in an
>>  engine.
 
> Proven execution, however, is.  However, in my opinion LithTech is
> still probably the best of the pure licensable engines because they
> have predicated engine licensing as a revenue model (so you get high
> quality support and docs) AND they've shipped well regarded games
> with their engine.
 
Well, my bias is obvious, and my credentials limited, so I'll say
we're happy with the NetImmerse engine and leave it at that.  It's
been an amazingly *stable* platform.  Not having to spend a lot of
time chasing client bugs is a major plus in anyone's book.  But again,
it's an engine built specifically for liscensing, rather than for a
specific game.

--Dave Rickey

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